Cheng Zhang is the co-founder and CEO of Character Biosciences and a member of its board of directors. Cheng conceived, incubated, and launched Character in 2018 as a spinout of Clover Health, the Medicare Advantage technology company, where he was also vice president and head of life sciences. Under his leadership, Character has grown into a clinical-stage ophthalmology company, completed multiple financings, and formed partnerships with Bausch + Lomb and Genentech.

Before founding Character, Cheng spent more than five years at Pfizer, where he led the Greater China Region's strategy and innovation department. He expanded the team's remit from strategic planning to innovation, investments, and strategic partnerships. He built the business case for a 900-person expansion of Pfizer's China salesforce, led the regional product expansion strategy, and founded an internal innovation fund. He also launched a startup competition series with leading venture capital funds.

Earlier at Oliver Wyman, Cheng advised health and life sciences clients, including multinational pharmaceutical companies and nongovernmental organizations such as the World Health Organization and the Gates Foundation. As a volunteer consultant with the Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative, he worked to close treatment gaps for patients with opportunistic infections in Africa and Latin America.

Cheng holds a B.S. in mathematics and philosophy from Duke University, and is fluent in English and Mandarin.

Bob Kim is the chief medical officer of Character Biosciences. A board-certified ophthalmologist and retina specialist, he has spent more than 20 years developing retina therapies, from early research through regulatory approval.

Before joining Character, Bob served as chief medical officer and oversaw the clinical development programs at 4D Molecular Therapeutics and Apellis Pharmaceuticals. He also previously served as vice president and head of pharmaceutical product development at Alcon, where he oversaw seven product approvals, and held ophthalmology leadership roles at GSK and the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. In addition to working on the development of Syfovre, Beovu, and Empaveli, Bob led the late-stage development of Lucentis at Genentech through its initial approval in wet age-related macular degeneration and shaped the company’s initial clinical strategy for complement inhibition in geographic atrophy.

Earlier in his career, Bob served as a senior associate at the international venture firm Earlybird. At Carl Zeiss, he led development of the second-generation Stratus OCT, which became the top-selling ophthalmic diagnostic instrument. Bob began his career on the ophthalmology faculty at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he headed the Retina Service at San Francisco General Hospital and remains an associate clinical professor.

Bob holds an M.D. from Brown University, an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and a degree from Berklee College of Music. He completed his residency at UCSF, trained at the National Eye Institute and Moorfields Eye Hospital, and has authored more than 35 peer-reviewed publications. In 2023, Bob was awarded the Clinical Trials at the Summit’s “Summit of Excellence” Lifetime Achievement Award for his extensive and impactful work in ophthalmology care.

Erik Karrer is the chief scientific officer at Character Biosciences, where he leads human genetics-based target and drug discovery in age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma. He is the key inventor of Character’s pipeline programs, CTX203 and CTX114.

Erik brings more than 25 years of biotech experience and has led numerous drug discovery programs in ophthalmology, immunology, oncology, metabolic, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, and neurological areas. At 23andMe, he was a founding member of the therapeutics group, led the analysis of more than 1,000 genome-wide association studies to identify drug targets, and co-led joint scientific teams under 23andMe’s drug discovery partnership with GSK. Earlier, he was chief scientific officer of RuiYi (now Bird Rock Bio) and vice president of molecular biology and discovery at Perseid Therapeutics (acquired by Astellas). He began his career at Maxygen as a scientist and subsequently held positions of increasing responsibility.

Erik earned a Ph.D. and B.S. in genetics from the University of California, Davis, and completed postdoctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of California, Davis. He is an inventor of numerous patents on protein and peptide therapeutics for AMD and autoimmune indications, and an author on multiple peer-reviewed articles and abstracts.

Dan Elgort is the chief data and analytics officer at Character Biosciences. He is a company builder and healthtech executive with more than 20 years of experience leading data science and AI teams that serve pharma, providers, payers, and patients.

Most recently, Dan was chief data and analytics officer at Aster Insights (acquired by Zephyr AI), an oncology data and analytics company, where he led data strategy for a consortium of 20 U.S. National Cancer Institute partners and launched and scaled a software-enabled scientific consulting business line serving diverse pharma and biotech partners, including Merck, AbbVie, J&J, Moderna, and AstraZeneca. Earlier, as chief science officer of Covera Health, he helped develop an innovative data and analytics platform to measure diagnostic imaging accuracy and predict patient outcomes and costs. He began his career at Philips Research, where he led global healthcare data science and AI research.

Dan holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in biomedical engineering from Case Western Reserve University and a B.S. in biomedical engineering and computer science from Johns Hopkins University. He is an active venture investor and startup advisor, an inventor on more than 45 patents and patent applications, and an author of more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and abstracts. CIO Look named him one of the “10 Most Innovative Leaders in Data and Analytics” in 2024.

Will Krause is the senior vice president of finance at Character Biosciences. He brings more than 15 years of finance leadership experience across discovery, clinical, and commercial-stage biotechnology companies, including three commercial drug launches. He has supported numerous financings and played key roles in multiple strategic collaborations and acquisitions.

Before joining Character, Will was senior vice president of finance, operations, and administration at Bitterroot Bio, where he advised leadership on corporate strategy, capital planning, and business development. Previously, as vice president of finance at Shape Therapeutics, he built the company’s finance organization and supported its Series B financing and multiple strategic collaborations.

Earlier, Will spent five years at Portola Pharmaceuticals, where he built and led the financial planning and analysis team through two product launches, and later became the company’s first chief of staff. He also built the first financial planning function at KaloBios and led revenue and collaboration accounting at Onyx Pharmaceuticals through the U.S. launch of Kyprolis. He began his career in financial reporting and accounting roles at Nile Therapeutics and other publicly traded companies.

Will holds a master’s in accounting and financial management and a bachelor’s in finance. He is a licensed CPA in California (inactive).

Kaila Smilen is vice president of corporate development at Character Biosciences, where she leads business development and corporate strategy. She brings a decade of experience across biopharma partnering, real-world data, and life sciences strategy.

Before joining Character, Kaila was a member of Genentech's global business development team, where she focused on ophthalmology partnering. She previously led real-world data partnerships with biopharma companies at Flatiron Health, and began her career as a consultant at ClearView Healthcare Partners, where she advised biopharma clients on corporate valuation, asset diligence, and lifecycle strategy.

Kaila holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in applied mathematics-economics from Brown University.

Zach Zhu is the vice president of chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) and technical operations at Character Biosciences, where he leads CMC end to end, from process and formulation development through manufacturing, analytics, and CMC regulatory strategy. He brings more than 15 years of experience leading CMC across multiple modalities, from early development through commercial launch.

Before joining Character, Zach was chief technology officer and head of CMC at Innorna, where he built and led all CMC functions and the company’s end-to-end mRNA/LNP development and manufacturing platform. He oversaw the build-out of two manufacturing facilities and led CMC regulatory strategy for U.S. and China IND submissions.

Previously, Zach was senior director and head of drug product at Iveric Bio (acquired by Astellas). There, he led drug product development for Izervay, a treatment for geographic atrophy, through commercial launch. He also served as CMC lead for the company’s small-molecule ophthalmology program, IC-500.

Earlier at Moderna, Zach led the drug product manufacturing science and technology group and led the build of the company's in-house fill-finish capability. At Biogen and Bristol Myers Squibb, he was drug product lead for commercial and pipeline biologics, including Avonex, Plegridy, and urelumab.

Zach holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame, and an M.S. in physical chemistry and a B.S. in chemistry from Nanjing University.

Jessamyn Wead is the head of people at Character Biosciences, where she oversees all aspects of people and culture at the company. Her guiding purpose is building teams of talented people who can make a real impact on the most pressing problems of our time.

Before joining Character, Jessamyn spent more than a decade building people systems for science-driven companies, including Second Genome, Pendulum Therapeutics, and Sound Agriculture. She has designed compensation philosophies and pay structures, equity and recognition programs, performance management processes, and the HR operations that let growing organizations scale without losing their culture. Before moving into HR, Jessamyn managed events and corporate partnerships for the global nonprofit Vitamin Angels.

Jessamyn holds an MPH from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.A. in Latin American studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese.