Gerrit Klaerner

Who is Gerrit Klaerner?

Gerrit Klaerner is CEO of Relypsa. He was a researcher at IBM Almaden Research Center.

Gerrit joined Relypsa in October 2007 after negotiating the Relypsa spin out transaction from Amgen as an advisor to the lead investor 5AM Ventures. He co-founded Ilypsa in 2003 while at Symyx Technologies. Between 2003 and 2007, Gerrit held varying positions at Ilypsa and was in charge of the series A and B financings on the company side and licensing deals with Astellas and Cubist. As Ilypsa’s Chief Business Officer, Gerrit co-led the M negotiations and diligence efforts. Prior to Ilypsa, he joined Symyx in 1998 as a Staff Scientist, and was later promoted to Director of Business Development. Gerrit received his Ph.D. in polymer chemistry from the Max-Planck-Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany. He conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University and the IBM Almaden Research Center.