Brook Byers (born August 2, 1945,

Belleville, IL Belleville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. It is a southeastern suburb of St. Louis. The population was 42,404 at the 2020 census, making it the most populated city in the Metro East region of Greater ...

(

Scott Air Force Base Scott Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base in St. Clair County, Illinois, near Belleville and O'Fallon, east-southeast of downtown St. Louis. Originally Scott Field, it was one of 32 Air Service training camps established af ...

))Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley (UCB) – BROOK BYERS: BIOTECHNOLOGY VENTURE CAPITALIST, 1970–2006
/ref> is a senior partner at

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers Kleiner Perkins, formerly Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), is an American venture capital firm which specializes in investing in incubation, early stage and growth companies. Since its founding in 1972, the firm has backed entrepreneur ...

Early life and education

Raised in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

, Georgia, Byers earned a bachelor's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

in 1968 from

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Established in 1885, it has the lar ...

and an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

from

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Career

Brook Byers has been a venture capital investor since 1972. He has been closely involved with more than fifty new technology based ventures, over half of which have already become public companies. He formed the first Life Sciences practice group in the venture capital profession in 1984 and led KPCB to become a top tier venture capital firm in the medical, healthcare, and biotechnology sectors. KPCB has invested in and helped build over 110 Life Sciences companies which have already developed hundreds of products to treat major underserved medical needs for millions of patients.

Activity in biotechnology

Byers was the founding president and then chairman, of four biotechnology companies which were incubated in KPCB's offices and went on to become public companies with an aggregate market value over $8 Billion. He is often featured on the Forbes Midas list and is currently on the board of directors of ten companies; ''CardioDX, Crescendo Bioscience, Inc., Genomic Health Incorporated, Five Prime Therapeutics, OptiMedica, HX Diagnostics, Pacific Biosciences, Inc., Tethys, Veracyte, Inc., and XDx, Inc.'' Previously, he served on the board of directors of Idec Pharmaceuticals (chairman), Athena Neurosciences (chairman), Signal Pharmaceuticals, Arris Pharmaceuticals,

Pharmacopeia A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea (or the typographically obsolete rendering, ''pharmacopœia''), meaning "drug-making", in its modern technical sense, is a reference work containing directions for the identification of compound med ...

Ligand Pharmaceuticals Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated is a biopharmaceutical company located in Jupiter, Florida. Founded in 1987 as Progenix Inc., the company went public in 1992. Initially focused on developing its own drugs, a period of turbulence in the early 2 ...

(chairman),

Hybritech Beckman Coulter, Inc. is a Danaher Corporation company that develops, manufactures, and markets products relevant to biomedical testing. It operates in the industries of Diagnosis, diagnostics under the brand name Beckman Coulter and life science ...

(chairman), Genprobe, Nanogen, and others. These companies have pioneered the medical use of molecular biology, monoclonal antibodies, personalized medicine, molecular diagnostics and genomics. In 2017, he joined the board of Grail, a biotech company focused on cancer research.

Other positions

In 2010, Byers was a board member of the University of California at San Francisco Medical Foundation, the New Schools Foundation, Stanford's Bio-X Advisory Council and the Stanford Eye Council. He was co-chair of the five-year, $1.4 billion, UCSF Capital Campaign. In 2007, he was awarded the "UCSF Medal" as their honorary degree equivalent. In 2008, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2009, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Venture Capital Association. Byers was president and a director of the Western Association of Venture Capitalists and is a contributing author of the book ''Guide to Venture Capital''. He is currently a board member of the

University of California at San Francisco The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life s ...

Medical Foundation, the

California Healthcare Institute CHI-California Healthcare Institute is a private, non-profit public policy research and advocacy organization, representing more than 250 universities, academic research centers, biotechnology, and medical device companies. Founded in 1993, and b ...

, the NewSchools Venture Fund, Stanford's Bio-X Advisory Council, the Stanford Eye Council and TechNet. He is co-chair of the

UCSF The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life ...

Capital Campaign. He was formerly a director of the Entrepreneurs Foundation, the California Healthcare Institute, the

Asian Art Museum of San Francisco The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco – Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture"About"
Asian Art Museum website. ...

, the

Graduate School of Business Advisory Council,

's That Man May See Vision Research Foundation (chairman), and the

Advisory Board, and was a founder of TechNet. Byers is also a member of the

Environmental Defense Fund Environmental Defense Fund or EDF (formerly known as Environmental Defense) is a United States–based nonprofit environmental advocacy group. The group is known for its work on issues including global warming, ecosystem restoration, oceans, an ...

Personal life

Byers is the brother of

Professor Tom Byers.

References

External links

KPCB: Brook Byers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Byers, Brook Businesspeople from the San Francisco Bay Area American venture capitalists Georgia Tech alumni Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Stanford University trustees University of California, San Francisco staff Living people Kleiner Perkins people American financial company founders 1945 births