Laura Shawver, PhD

Venture Partner

Laura Shawver is a Venture Partner at Raven. Laura’s primary responsibility is to focus on new company creation. Prior to Raven, Laura was President and CEO of Capstan Therapeutics (acquired by Abbvie in 2025) focused on in vivo engineering of cells through targeted lipid nanoparticles with an initial focus on developing therapies for autoimmune disease by reprogramming T cells in vivo to deplete pathogenic B cells. Before Capstan, she was CEO of Silverback Therapeutics (acquired by ARS Pharma in 2022), Synthorx (acquired by Sanofi in 2020) Cleave Biosciences, Phenomix and President of SUGEN, Inc (acquired by Pharmacia). Laura also serves as Board Chair for Adcendo ApS and ADARx as well as Director of ARS Pharmaceuticals and Dovetail Therapeutics. Laura brings to Raven more than twenty-five years of leadership experience in the life sciences industry. Laura received her PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Iowa.