Vanessa Barth, Ph.D.
Associate Vice President, COO & Head of Lilly Gateway Labs East Coast and Boston Seaport Site Head
Vanessa Barth is Associate Vice President, COO & Head of Lilly Gateway Labs East Coast. She also serves as the site head for Lilly Gateway Labs’ Boston Seaport location, supporting the local biotech ecosystem by accelerating drug discovery and development through early engagement with companies and providing tailored offerings to meet their needs.
During her more than 20-year career at Lilly, Vanessa has held several leadership and scientific positions of increasing responsibility across research and drug development, including Strategic Competitive Intelligence, Lilly Research Labs Operations, Loaned Executive and Chief Scientific Officer, BioCrossroads, Head of Search & Evaluate for Genetic Medicines, and Lilly-Chorus Clinical Development Asset Manager & External Innovation. She is passionate about her role as a mentor and advisor and helped establish the AXIS mentoring program at the Indiana Biosciences Research Institute to support life sciences entrepreneurs.
Vanessa joined Lilly after earning her B.A. in Neuroscience from the Claremont Colleges, Pomona, and obtained her Ph.D. in Medical Neurobiology from Indiana University while working full-time at Lilly. Her career at Lilly began at the bench on pioneering work to evolve how the imaging field identified and evaluated potential novel positron emission tomography (PET) tracers leveraging mass spectrometry coupled with liquid chromatography (LC-MS/MS).