Santa Fe Institute

Bio

J. Leighton Read, M.D. became a general partner at Alloy Ventures in 2001, after 14 years as a biotechnology entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded Affymax NV, under the direction of Dr. Alejandro Zaffaroni. He founded Aviron, a biopharmaceutical company focused on vaccines for infectious disease, where he served as chairman and CEO until 1999 and director until its acquisition by MedImmune in early 2002. Leighton was also a partner in Interhealth Limited, an investment partnership.

Leighton received a B.S. from Rice University in Psychology and Biology (1973), an M.D. from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (1976) and completed internal medicine training at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston where he held appointments at the Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health. He is a director of Alexza Pharmaceuticals (NASDQ: ALXA), Cambrios Corp., OPAL Therapeutics, Inc., and Seriosity, Inc., and has served as director for a number of other biotechnology companies, on the executive committee of the Biotechnology Industry Association and has won several awards as co-inventor of technology underlying the Affymetrix GeneChip™.