Dr. Thomas has been a venture partner at Samsara Biocapital since 2023 and is currently an independent board director for Allakos Therapeutics and Ventus Therapeutics. She is also a scientific advisor for AnaptysBio.
Dr. Thomas is a physician scientist, immunologist with more than 20 years of experience in academia, large pharmaceutical companies and biotech across multiple diverse therapeutic areas.
Prior to Samsara, she was a board director for Chinook (acquired by Novartis in 2023) and held multiple roles in biotech companies including Executive Vice President, Head of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer at Equillium and the Chief Medical Officer of Principia Biopharma which was acquired by Sanofi September 2020 for 3.7 billion.
Prior to biotech, Dr. Thomas held multiple roles in pharma including Vice President and Global Head of Translational Medicine for Immunology, Inflammation, and Infectious Disease at Roche where her team was instrumental for the approval of Xofluza; Vice President of Clinical Development and Clinical Immunophenotyping at Pfizer and Vice President and Chief Development Officer of the Biosimilars Research and Development Unit at Pfizer that resulted in the registrational approval of 4 biosimilar assets across oncology and immunology. Dr. Thomas began her industry career at Bristol-Myers Squibb as Director of Global Clinical Development in Immunology, where she was involved in the registrational approval of the immunomodulatory drug, belatacept and the life cycle management of abatacept.
Dr. Thomas began her career as a tenured track faculty member at Weill Cornell Medicine’s Department of Nephrology and Transplantation Medicine. She was the medical director of the Islet Cell Transplantation Program where she performed 5 islet cell transplants in 3 patients and was a principal investigator in several clinical trials. Dr. Thomas received a B.A. in sociology and a M.D. from Cornell University. She resides in the Bay Area in California.