Meet Our Team
Yatiri Bio’s multidisciplinary founding team is passionate about accelerating patient access to life-altering therapeutics. Having worked closely together for over a decade the team is powerful and efficient. We are eager to overcome the challenges and revolutionize drug discovery and development.

Pilgrim Jackson
Ph.D.
Pilgrim Jackson, Ph.D. co-founded Yatiri Bio in 2020 and currently serves as CEO. Prior to founding Yatiri Bio Dr. Jackson worked at Celgene for 13 years where he built and lead multidisciplinary teams to tackle challenging drug discovery problems in the areas of inflammation and oncology.…

Afshin Mahmoudi
M.S.
Afshin Mahmoudi is a co-founder at Yatiri Bio and serves as a VP of Business Development. Mr. Mahmoudi is an accomplished pharmaceutical professional with over 20 years of comprehensive experience in drug discovery, small and large molecules, management and…

Raman Afshar
Ph.D.
Raman Afshar serves as the Vice President of Commercial and R&D at AnaSpec, Inc. since 2015 and is responsible for the company’s new product development, marketing campaigns, and worldwide sales. Raman earned a PhD in Inorganic Chemistry from the…

Sam Tahmassebi
Ph.D., J.D.
Sam Tahmassebi has over 20 years of experience representing startup companies in intellectual property and transactional matters. His expertise is in the prosecution of patent applications, counseling on IPstrategy, invalidity and non-infringement opinions, IPdue diligence in relation to mergers…

Mahan Abbasian
M.S.

Antonius Koller
Ph.D.

Salvador Martinez de Bartolome Izquierdo
Ph.D.

James T. Sorrentino

RJ Bates
M.S.
Meet Our Advisory Board

John R. Yates III
Ph.D.
John R. Yates is the Ernest W. Hahn Professor in the Departments of Molecular Medicine and Neurobiology at The Scripps Research Institute. His research interests include development of integrated methods for tandem mass spectrometry analysis of protein mixtures, bioinformatics…

David Webb
Ph.D.
Dr. Webb is currently CEO of Synbal(www.synbal.com), Chairman of the Board at Agragene (www.agragene/com)and Adjunct Professor at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI). He was Chairman of the Board of Sorrento Therapeutics from 2012-2014and is also former chairman of the…

Derek L Stirewalt
M.D.

Greg Reyes
M.D., Ph.D.
Greg Reyes, M.D., Ph.D. has over 30 years of experience as a senior leader in biotech and large pharma exploring drug discovery and development in multiple therapy areas. His leadership positions included leading Drug Discovery for Celgene Corporation and…

Jill P. Mesirov
Ph.D.

Bradley B. Gordon
MBA, Ph.D.

Jen Turbiak Carroll

Mark S. Chapman
Ph.D.
Dr. Chapman is a veteran of large and small biotech companies. He is well versed in all aspects of drug discovery, from target selection, validation, screening, hit-to-lead, lead optimization, preclinical testing, candidate selection, and early clinical development. He has worked…

Mike Breider
D.V.M., Ph.D.
Mike Breider, D.V.M., Ph.D. is a Board Certified Veterinary Pathologist with extensive experience as a manager and scientist in various aspects of Drug Discovery and Development. Recently retired, Mike’s last position was with Celgene Pharmaceuticals as the Head of Exploratory Toxicology…
