A View On The Bay

by Tara Nickerson

Bio

Tara is an accomplished biotechnology executive known for her expertise in corporate and business development. As the Chief Business Officer at Prothena Corporation, Tara is an active member of the executive management and leadership teams, setting the company’s strategic direction. She is responsible for global business development and operations including manufacturing, IT and facilities. Most notably, she was on the core team that formed Prothena as a public company via a spin-­‐off from Elan Pharmaceuticals.

Tara was previously the Vice President, Head of Corporate Development at Neotope Biosciences. In that capacity, she represented Neotope in the complex $125M spin-­off from Elan Pharmaceuticals to form Prothena. She crafted the strategic framework for the spin-off and interacted with the board of directors. Tara served as Vice President, Head of Business Development at Elan Pharmaceuticals. In her previous business development and corporate strategy positions, she was responsible for opportunity evaluation, diligence and negotiations, resulting in a broad network of innovative collaborations. 

Tara started her career as a scientist leading preclinical drug discovery programs. She was a Research Associate at Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research in Montreal, and later moved to San Francisco, where she worked as a Senior Scientist at Celera Genomics. Tara earned a B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Experimental Medicine from McGill University and an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.