Barbara is President and CEO of Tango Therapeutics, a biotechnology company she began building shortly after joining Third Rock Ventures (TRV) in March 2015. Tango launched with a $55M Series A from TRV in March 2017 and Barbara as interim CEO. In September 2017, Barbara accepted the position as permanent President and CEO, while remaining a part-time venture partner at TRV. Tango has a target discovery engine based on the genetic principle of synthetic lethality, several lead drug discovery programs and a developing pipeline of novel genetic targets selected to make important contributions to cancer patients.
In her role at TRV, Barbara was interim CMO for Neon Therapeutics from launch in April 2015 until September 2017 and played a leadership role in creating Relay Therapeutics, launched in March 2016. Barbara also is a member of the Board of Directors of Revolution Medicine, another exceptional cancer drug discovery company launched by TRV in 2015.
Prior to joining Third Rock Ventures, Barbara was SVP and Global Head, Oncology Translational Medicine at Novartis from 2009 to 2015 and VP, Oncology Discovery and Translational Medicine at GlaxoSmithKline from 2005 to 2009. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Barbara was Professor of Medicine and Genetics at The University of Pennsylvania, leading a clinical and translational research program in cancer genetics.
Barbara is an elected member of the American Association of Physicians and the American Society for Clinical Investigation, of which she served as President in 2005. Barbara also has served on the Board of Directors of both ASCO and AACR. She is a graduate of the University of Washington School of Medicine, completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Yale University and her fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.