Dr. Akkaraju is a managing member of Samsara BioCapital GP, LLC, the general partner of Samsara BioCapital LP. Previously, Dr. Akkaraju was a Senior Advisor of Sofinnova Ventures, as well as a Managing General Partner at Sofinnova Ventures. Prior to joining Sofinnova, Dr. Akkaraju was a Managing Director at New Leaf Venture Partners, or New Leaf. Before this, Dr. Akkaraju served as a managing director at Panorama Capital, LLC, a private equity firm founded by the former venture capital investment team of J.P. Morgan Partners, LLC, or JPMP, a private equity division of JPMorgan Chase & Co. Dr. Akkaraju was a part of the health care investment team at JPMP, most recently as Partner. Dr. Akkaraju has served on the boards of directors of numerous public and private companies, including Synageva BioPharma Corp., Barrier Therapeutics, Inc. aTyr Pharma, Inc., ZS Pharma, Inc. and EyeTech Pharmaceuticals Inc., all of which are or were publicly traded biotechnology companies, and Amarin Corporation plc, a foreign publicly traded biotechnology company. He currently serves on the boards of directors of Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Principia Biopharma Inc. and Seattle Genetics, Inc, all of which are publicly traded companies. Dr. Akkaraju holds a B.A. in Biochemistry and Computer Science from Rice University and an M.D. and Ph.D. in immunology from Stanford University School of Medicine.