GRAIL Announces Appointment of Hal Barron and Hans Bishop to its Board of Directors

GRAIL Inc. recently announced the appointment of Hal Barron, M.D., and Hans Bishop to its Board of Directors.

Hal Barron is globally recognized for his clinical and scientific leadership. Currently he is the Chief Scientific Officer and President of R&D at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Before he took that position, he served as president of R&D at Calico and as the Executive Vice President, Head of Global Product Development, and Chief Medical Officer at Roche Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Genentech. Dr. Barron is also an Associate Adjunct Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Barron received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Washington University in St. Louis and his medical degree from Yale University.

Hans Bishop comes to GRAIL’s Board of Directors with more than 30 years of experience in the biotechnology industry. He founded Juno Therapeutics in 2013 and served as its President and Chief Executive Officer until the company was acquired by Celgene in March of 2018. Bishop currently serves on the Board of Directors of Celgene and Agilent Technologies. Prior to his time at Juno, he served as an Executive in Residence at Warburg Pincus, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Dendreon, Inc., President of Specialty Medicine at Bayer Healthcare, Senior Vice President of Global Commercial Operations at Chiron Corporation, and Vice President and General Manager of European Biopharmaceuticals. He holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Brunel University in London.

“We are delighted to welcome Hal and Hans to our Board. They are both known for being exceptional leaders who are committed to making an impact for people suffering from disease,” said GRAIL Chief Executive Officer Jennifer Cook. “We look forward to benefiting from their significant scientific and corporate experience as we continue on our path to develop early detection products and alleviate the global cancer burden.”

GRAIL, a McKesson Ventures portfolio company, is a life sciences company whose mission is to detect cancer early when it can be cured. It combines the power of high-intensity sequencing, leading-edge computer science, and large population-scale clinical studies to enhance the scientific understanding of cancer biology and to ultimately develop a blood test for early-stage cancer detection.