Irena Melnikova has joined Pfizer Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of US-based pharmaceutical biotechnological corporation Pfizer.
Melnikova has taken up an executive director of worldwide business development and partner role at Pfizer Ventures after a year and five months at immunotherapy group Umoja Biopharma as chief financing officer.
Previously, Melnikova had served almost two and a half years as a managing director of SVB Leerink, the healthcare-focused investment arm of growth private equity firm Silicon Valley Bank.
Formed in 2004, Pfizer Ventures invests in healthcare and life sciences-related startups strategic to its parent organisation. The unit has some 40 active portfolio companies, having scored roughly 60 exits.
Pfizer Ventures’ investments include drug discovery company Nimbus Therapeutics and Capstan Therapeutics, a cell engineering-based therapeutics platform.
Photo of Irena Melnikova courtesy of LinkedIn.