Gianni brings more than two decades of experience in pharmaceutical discovery sciences, and held executive roles at leading global pharmaceutical companies including Roche and Lilly.

Gianni previously was at Roche, where he served as Research Head of Global Cardiovascular and Metabolic Research, and was responsible for all discovery and development activities in the CV, Renal and Metabolic areas; Head of Discovery Research, Basel Site; Global Head of the Metabolic and Vascular Disease Business Unit; and more recently Head of the Roche China R&D center, Shanghai. Gianni brings this depth of experience to Versant portfolio companies by providing critical guidance on their discovery programs.

Prior to joining Versant, Tom was a medicinal chemist at XenoPort, a start-up biotech company that completed an IPO in 2005. Tom earned his Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University.