Board of Directors

Dr. Curnutte brings over 20 years of biopharmaceutical experience to Pliant. Dr. Curnutte previous served as Executive Vice President, Research and Development at Portola Pharmaceuticals until his retirement in May 2019. Prior to joining Portola, Dr. Curnutte served as Chief Executive Officer of 3-V Biosciences, a private start-up company founded in 2007 with the goal of developing host-directed antiviral small molecules. Before that, he served as President at Schering-Plough Biopharma (formerly DNAX Research Institute and now Merck Research Laboratories), where he led the drug discovery and early development efforts for biologic therapeutics. During his time with Schering-Plough, eight therapeutic entities progressed into development. Earlier in his career, he held several senior management positions at Genentech during which he oversaw that company’s immunology discovery program. Prior to Genentech, Dr. Curnutte was a tenured faculty member at The Scripps Research Institute, pursuing basic and clinical research in inflammation biochemistry and the molecular genetics of congenital immune deficiencies.

In addition to Pliant, Dr. Curnutte also currently serves on the Board of Autobahn Labs.

Dr. Curnutte received his B.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University and an M.D. and a Ph.D. in biological chemistry from Harvard Medical School.