Kristin Yarema, PhD
Chief Executive Officer and Director
Kristin Yarema, Ph.D. brings over two decades of leadership experience in human therapeutics to Imagene. Dr. Yarema most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Poseida Therapeutics, Inc. (formerly Nasdaq: PSTX) from January 2024 through June 2025, continuing in her leadership role following the company’s acquisition of the oncology, autoimmune, and rare disease company by Roche in January 2025. She also served as a member of Poseida’s Board of Directors from January 2024 until the acquisition in January 2025. She previously held the position of President, Cell Therapy at Poseida from April 2023 to December 2023.
Prior to Poseida, Dr. Yarema served as Chief Commercial Officer at Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc., a publicly held oncology and autoimmune T-cell immunotherapy company, from February 2020 to November 2022. She also held numerous senior positions at Amgen, including Vice President and Therapeutic Area Head roles in Inflammation (autoimmune), Bone, Nephrology, Hematology, Cardiovascular, Metabolism, and Neuroscience along with various other U.S. and global commercial leadership positions of increasing responsibility from 2013 to 2020, including U.S. commercial responsibilities for dermatology and rheumatology.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Yarema held various clinical development and commercial leadership roles in at Novartis from 2007 to 2013, including Global Program Head for multiple therapeutics, and Global Head, Global Strategic Marketing. She began her industry career at management consultancy McKinsey & Company, where she provided strategic advice to many healthcare companies from 2000 to 2007, ultimately as Associate Principal.
Dr. Yarema currently serves on the boards of directors of the Celiac Disease Foundation, a global patient advocacy group, and the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, a cell and gene therapy industry association. She holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and B.A. in English from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.