Vida Ventures

Fred provided leadership for the Fund for its first 5 years. Fred Cohen is a Founder and Senior Managing Director of Vida Ventures, a Biotechnology investment group.  Prior to this, he was a Partner at TPG and co-founder of TPG Biotechnology, a life science focused investment effort.  During his 15 years at TPG,  he was responsible for co-leading the Biotechnology investment effort. The TPG Biotechnology team has invested in over 50 companies covering areas of Drug Discovery and Development, Personalized Medicine, Allied Pharmaceutical Services, Industrial Biotechnology and Medical Technology.  For the last 30 years, Dr. Cohen has been at UCSF where he has had clinical responsibilities as an Internist for hospitalized patients, a consulting Endocrinologist, and as the Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism. Prior to joining TPG, he was a Professor of Medicine, Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, and Biochemistry and Biophysics.  His research interests include structure based drug design, prion diseases, computational biology and heteropolymer chemistry.  Dr. Cohen has published over 200 peer reviewed articles, participated as a co-inventor on over 10 patents and has served as an editor or editorial board member of several international scientific journals.  Dr. Cohen received his BS degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, his D.Phil. in Molecular Biophysics from Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, his MD from Stanford and his postdoctoral training and postgraduate medical training in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology at UCSF.  Dr. Cohen is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  Dr. Cohen currently serves on the Board of Directors of several biotechnology and pharmaceutical organizations including BioCryst, CareDx, Cell Design Labs, Five Prime Therapeutics, Genomic Health, Progyny, Tandem Diabetes, Urogen and Veracyte.