Katya Smirnyagina, Ph.D.
Venture Partner
Katya joined Alta in 2002 and focuses on European investment opportunities. She currently represents Alta on the board of directors of Cerenis Therapeutics and Kiadis Pharma. She also led Alta’s investment in Ablynx.
Prior to joining Alta, she worked in business development and finance at Genset, a French genomics-based biotechnology company, where she negotiated a number of licensing agreements and strategic partnerships. Prior to Genset, Katya was a manager with the Mitchell Madison Group, a global management-consulting firm, from 1997 to 2000.
She obtained a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received her Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry with high honors from Moscow University in Russia. Katya completed her scientific training as a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She has co-authored a number of scientific papers.
