Brett Pletcher

EVP, Chief Legal Officer

Brett Pletcher was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer in August 2024.  

Brett is a seasoned attorney and biopharma executive with deep experience developing operational capacity, executing corporate strategies, driving organizational compliance, and providing practical legal services. 

Before joining Cytokinetics, Brett spent 17 years at Gilead Sciences. He served as General Counsel for 13 years, ultimately serving as Executive Vice President, Corporate Affairs, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. During his tenure, he led an international organization that executed on corporate and capital allocation strategies, delivered on business and financial goals, facilitated the launch of more than a dozen new drugs and therapeutic agents, shaped corporate culture, developed organizational capacity, and drove employee and leadership development.   

Previously, Brett spent almost a decade at the law firm Gunderson Dettmer where he focused on providing corporate and securities services to emerging public and private companies and venture capital investors. Brett began his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), where he was a senior consultant in the Law Firm and Law Department Services group.  

Brett holds dual bachelor’s degrees in economics and political science from the University of California at Riverside and a Juris Doctor degree from University of California at Berkeley School of Law. He is a member of the California State Bar and a former member of the Nasdaq Listing and Hearing Review Council. He has spoken at numerous institutional investor conferences and continuing education conferences at Harvard, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Stanford, the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, the Securities Regulation Institute, and other venues.   

Brett is a husband and father and spent much of the two years between leaving Gilead and joining Cytokinetics traveling around the western United States in an RV. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, exploring new places, and learning about history.