Celia is the Chief Medical Officer of Santa Ana Bio. In parallel, Celia is a Founding Partner of Swiftcurrent Bio LLC. She was previously Chief Medical Officer of Vera Therapeutics where she helped launch its IPO and oversaw three programs in rare diseases. Celia was Senior Medical Director at Genentech and served as Global Development Lead for a BTK inhibitor in multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis. She also led programs with monoclonal antibodies, bispecifics, and complement inhibitors in various therapeutic areas such as respiratory, allergy, nephrology, infectious disease and inflammation. She also served as Medical Director in Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at Amgen leading teams and activities related to the approval and commercialization of two osteoporosis therapies.

Celia is a board certified physician. She received her B.S. in General Chemistry with a specialization in Business and Administration from UCLA and her M.D. from University of Rochester School of Medicine. She trained in internal medicine at Boston Medical Center and in rheumatology at UCLA and Washington University in St. Louis where she also was a post-doctoral fellow training in complement with John P. Atkinson, MD. Prior to industry, she was faculty at UCSF where she continues to see patients at the San Francisco VA Medical Center