Barbara Weber Biography and Net Worth

Barbara has been focused on making a difference for patients as long as she can remember – starting with childhood books about people whose lives were changed by medical advances and the exceptional people behind them.  In medical school surgery was her specialty of choice, until a rotation at a renowned trauma center made it clear that her aversion to getting up early would be career-limiting. With the recent discovery of oncogenes, oncology merged her passion for genetics and patients.

Barbara served as Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan and Associate and then Professor of Medicine and Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania. She contributed to the identification of the breast cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 and is internationally recognized for her contributions to understanding their function, genetic epidemiology and clinical management.

In 2005, Barbara joined GlaxoSmithKline as Vice President Oncology Discovery and Translational Medicine with the goal of making a difference to cancer patients as genetically-targeted therapies were being developed. She subsequently served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Oncology Translational Medicine at Novartis, with a single-minded focus on shortening drug development timelines, increasing success rates and implementing patient selection in phase I clinical studies. The highlight of this work was the FDA approval of the ALK inhibitor ceritinib based on the phase I study, three years after the first patient was dosed.

Barbara subsequently joined Third Rock Ventures. As an EIR and then Venture Partner, she played key leadership roles in the design and launch of Neon Therapeutics, Relay Therapeutics, and Tango Therapeutics.  After serving as interim CEO for Tango, Barbara decided she couldn’t bear to hand the leadership role over to someone else and accepted appointment as the company’s long-term CEO; as a part-time Venture Partner, Barb continues to advise TRV on selected companies.

Barbara is an elected member of the honorary societies American Association of Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation, of which she served previously as President. She also has served on numerous scientific advisory boards and on the Boards of Directors for both the ASCO and the AACR. Barbara earned a B.S. in chemistry and M.D. from the University of Washington, and completed residency in Internal Medicine at Yale University and fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.