65. Patient focused precision oncology, Avanish Vellanki, Cofounder and CEO, Rain Therapeutics

Avanish Vellanki is passionate about offering cancer patients better treatment options, and he firmly believes that precision oncology strategies are the best manner in which to achieve that goal. He has 20 years of experience across the healthcare and investment banking sectors and began his career on Wall Street at Bear, Stearns & Co. in 2004 in equity research, covering small/mid-cap biotechnology companies. Following his time at Bear, Stearns, Avanish transitioned to Global Healthcare Investment Banking at Citigroup where he focused on large-cap global biopharmaceutical strategic and financing transactions. He subsequently moved to industry, joining Proteolix in 2009 prior to its acquisition by Onyx Pharmaceuticals, where he helped develop carfilzomib (Kyprolis(R)) for patients with multiple myeloma. Prior to founding Rain, Avanish was senior vice president and chief business officer at Aptose Biosciences. Avanish holds a BA from Carleton College, an MBS in biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and MBA from the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota.