For more than 25 years, Tim Shannon has been an entrepreneur, executive, researcher, professor, and practicing physician in pulmonary and critical care medicine. A Canaan investor since 2009, Shannon’s operating experience helped companies grow from their earliest stages to funded companies creating value through partnerships, M&A and IPOs. Most recently, Shannon was startup CEO and currently serves as the Chairman of Arvinas, named by Fierce Biotech as a Fierce 15 company of 2015. Shannon was one of the early institutional investors and remains on the board of CytomX Therapeutics, which completed a $92 million initial public offering in October 2015 (NASDAQ: CTMX). He was a co-lead Series A investor in Civitas Therapeutics, which was acquired by Acorda Therapeutics in October 2014 for $525 million, and a lead Series A investor in Novira Therapeutics, Inc. which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in December 2015. In addition, he serves on the boards of IDEAYA Biosciences, NextCure, Spyryx Biosciences, Vivace Therapeutics and VaxInnate Corporation.

Prior to Canaan, Shannon was president and chief executive officer of CuraGen, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company focused on oncology, after serving as executive vice president of R&D and chief medical officer. Earlier he was the senior vice president and head of global clinical development for Bayer’s Pharmaceutical Business Group. Shannon began his career as assistant professor of the pulmonary and critical care division at Yale University School of Medicine. Shannon received his postgraduate medical training at the Beth Israel Hospital of Harvard Medical School and at Boston University, earned his medical degree from the University of Connecticut, and has a B.A. in chemistry from Amherst College.