Santosh Vetticaden, MD, PhD, MBA

Santosh Vetticaden is co-founder of Visgenx, a startup developing treatments for age-related macular degeneration—the leading cause of vision loss worldwide—affecting nearly 80 million individuals. Throughout his career, Santosh has pursued a passion for developing drugs to address unmet medical needs in diverse areas, including cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, hemophilia, sickle cell disease, and pediatric epilepsy. He has previously served as chief medical officer for multiple public companies, including Mast Therapeutics, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, and Maxygen. He also has held senior positions at Scios, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, Aventis Pharmaceuticals (now Sanofi), and the Whitehall-Robins Healthcare division of American Home Products Corporation (now Pfizer). Santosh has provided pro bono clinical care at a medical clinic for the poor and has served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He received his MBA from the Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his PhD from Virginia Commonwealth University, and his MD from the University of Maryland. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine.