Steven Gillis has been a managing director at ARCH Venture Partners since 2005. Dr. Gillis was a founder and director of Corixa Corporation and served as the company’s Chief Executive Officer since inception and as its chairman since January of 1999. GlaxoSmithKline acquired Corixa Corporation in July of 2005. Prior to starting Corixa, Dr. Gillis was a founder and director of Immunex Corporation. From 1981 until his departure in 1994, Dr. Gillis served as Immunex’s Director of Research and Development, Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Executive Officer of Immunex’s Research and Development subsidiary. Dr. Gillis was interim Chief Executive officer of Immunex Corporation following its majority purchase by American Cyanamid Company. Dr. Gillis remained on the Board of Directors of Immunex until 1997. Immunex was acquired by Amgen in 2002. Dr. Gillis is an immunologist by training with over 300 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of molecular and tumor immunology. He is credited as being a pioneer in the field of cytokines and cytokine receptors, directing the development of multiple marketed products including Leukine, (GM-CSF), Prokine (IL-2) and Enbrel (soluble TNF receptor-Fc fusion protein) as well as the regulatory approval of Bexxar (radiolabeled anti-CD20) and the novel vaccine adjuvant, MPL. Dr. Gillis received his B.A. from Williams College in 1975 and his Ph.D. from Dartmouth College in 1978. He currently serves as a director and/or Chairman of multiple private biotechnology companies in the United States. He also serves as a director of Takeda Pharmaceuticals.
Cindy Jacobs, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Jacobs is an experienced executive in drug development with expertise in several indications and over 30 years’ experience in Biotechnology/Pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Jacobs has achieved regulatory success in several product approvals and is currently President and Chief Medical Officer of Achieve Life Sciences. Prior to joining Achieve Life Sciences in 2017, Dr. Jacobs served as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at OncoGenex Pharmaceuticals Inc. since August 2008, and had been Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of OncoGenex Technologies Inc. from September 2005 to August 2008. From 1999 to July 2005, Dr. Jacobs served as Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Clinical Development of Corixa Corporation.
Prior to 1999, Dr. Jacobs held Vice President, Clinical Research positions at two other biopharmaceutical companies. Dr. Jacobs received her Bachelor’s degree in Microbiology from Montana State University, her Master’s degree and Ph.D. degree in Veterinary Pathology/Microbiology from Washington State University and an M.D. degree from the University of Washington Medical School. She has in-depth biotechnology experience in preclinical development, pharmacokinetic/drug metabolism studies, toxicology studies, clinical operations, Phase 1-4 trials in a variety of therapeutic areas, regulatory affairs, biostatistics, data management, medical information and quality assurance. Based on her preclinical work at Immunex Corporation, she is one of 2 inventors on the patent for Enbrel.
Jim Sullivan, Ph.D.
Jim Sullivan, PhD., is a Venture Partner with Orbimed and CEO of Vanqua Bio. Prior to joining Orbimed, he was the Vice President of Research at AbbVie where he was responsible for AbbVie’s research efforts in a variety of therapeutic/disease areas including oncology, immunology, neurology, hepatitis C and cystic fibrosis.
Jim has advanced more than 100 compounds into clinical development across a number of disease states and technology platforms. These include recently launched combination products for HCV (Mavyret and Viekira), the-first-in-class Bcl2 selective inhibitor, Venclexta, and multiple compounds currently in Phase II or III clinical trials. He has authored/co-authored more than 130 scientific publications and is an inventor on 11 patents. Jim is an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University and serves on the board of a number of companies and foundations including Regis Technologies, MATTER Healthcare Incubator, Chicago Biotechnology Accelerator, Pistoia Alliance and C2ST. He earned his bachelor’s degree and PhD. in biochemistry from Trinity College Dublin and conducted post-doctoral research in neurobiology at Northwestern University.
Nandita Bose, Ph.D.
Nandita Bose, Ph.D., has more than 18 years of accomplishment and innovation in the immuno-oncology field. She joined HiberCell from Biothera Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where she served as senior vice president of translational immunology. She has extensive experience in translational research involving delineation of immunopharmacodynamic effects in healthy volunteers and cancer patients as part of Phase I/II/III company-sponsored trials and investigator-initiated trials/ compassionate-use studies.
In addition to being adjunct faculty at North Dakota State University, she has held leadership roles in several scientific organizations. As the only industry member of the Education Committee of American Association of Immunologists (AAI), she has chaired committee-sponsored symposia to mentor undergrads and post-doctoral fellows. She is a working member of the Industry Council of Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and has sat on scientific grant review committees for the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). She is a reviewer for several cancer immunology journals including SITC’s leading journal, Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer (JITC).
Nandita earned her Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from the University of Georgia and conducted her postdoctoral work in cellular immunology at University of Minnesota and 3M Pharmaceuticals.
Michele Gargano, MS.c.
Michele Gargano, MS.c., has almost 30 years of industry experience in early-stage to BLA/NDA drug development. She brings extensive leadership experience having held positions of increasing responsibility throughout her career. Prior to joining HiberCell, Michele was the vice president of clinical development and program management at Biothera Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where she was responsible for managing clinical operations, cross-functional programming and regulatory affairs for multiple development programs. She has been responsible for 14 INDs for the treatment of cancer, various gastrointestinal, hepatic, and ophthalmic indications, and cystic fibrosis working closely with FDA’s CDER and CDRH divisions and select global health authorities. She has authored numerous clinical documents and regulatory submissions including clinical protocols, meeting briefing packages, breakthrough therapy and orphan drug applications, and has managed collaborative/ licensing relations furthering development.
Michele holds a B.A. in cultural anthropology and government from Sweet Briar College, and a general certificate and M.Sc. in social anthropology from the London School of Economics.
José Iglesias, M.D.
José Iglesias, M.D., is chief medical officer at HiberCell. He has more than 30 years of experience in oncology. Prior to working with HiberCell, José was vice president and head of translational medicine at Boston Biomedical Inc., where he was responsible for the clinical development of seven early pipeline compounds in immuno-oncology, solid tumor oncology and hematologic malignancies.
Previously, José was chief medical officer at Biothera where he was responsible for the clinical development program of Imprime-PGG. Prior to that, he was the chief medical officer for Bionomics where he was responsible for the clinical development of its oncology pipeline, including antivascular agents, monoclonal antibodies and small molecule kinase inhibitors. Before that, he served as vice president, clinical development, at Celgene Corporation, where he was responsible for the Phase III development of Abraxane in pancreatic cancer, lung cancer and metastatic breast cancer.
José is author or co-author of more than 60 publications in the area of Oncology, with over 6,000 citations. He received his M.D. in oncology and cancer biology from the Universidad de Montevideo, Uruguay.
Philip Rowlands, Ph.D.
As our consulting Head of Development, Philip Rowlands brings deep experience developing new classes of transformative medicines and technology platforms with a goal of improving outcomes for patients fighting cancer. Phil has spent 32 years in large and mid-size pharmaceutical companies in roles spanning preclinical and clinical R&D. Trained as a pharmacologist, toxicologist and embryologist, his career started in 1988 in developmental toxicology, first at Zeneca/ICI, and then at Sterling Drug in the UK. Through a series of roles of increasing responsibility in preclinical development, based in the UK, Europe, and then the US, he worked at Sterling, Sanofi, GD Searle and Pharmacia. In 2003, following acquisition, he transferred to Pfizer as an exploratory development director and has been focused exclusively on oncology drug development from that time. At Pfizer, Phil led multiple programs spanning small molecule and biologic modalities, and crossing multiple mechanistic classes including anti-angiogenesis, signal transduction, cell cycle inhibition, and immunotherapy. Programs he oversaw through different phases of preclinical and clinical development that ultimately led to new medicines included: bosutinib, crizotinib, dacomitinib, exemestane, inotuzumab, palbociclib, and tremelimumab.
In 2011, Phil moved to Takeda/Millennium, initially, as lead portfolio management and program leadership, and later, among a small management group piloting the first version of a fully integrated Therapeutic Area group comprising program leadership, program and portfolio management, and clinical development into one unit responsible for oncology R&D strategy, oversight of execution against that strategy, and development portfolio goals and budget. From 2015-2020, Phil was Oncology Therapeutic Area Head. In this time, working closely with discovery and commercial partners, he oversaw the critical pivot of the research strategy to development of next generation breakthrough immune-oncology programs, the acquisition of ARIAD, new indication delivery for Adcetris, Ninlaro and Iclusig, new medicines in brigatinib and mobocertinib, regional approvals for cabozantinib and niraparib, and advancement into the clinic of the next wave of immunotherapy approaches including a novel STING agonist, a sumoylation inhibitor, an attenuated cytokine, an armored oncolytic vaccine, and critical partnerships to bring in multiple next generation cell therapy and bispecific platforms. Consistently a champion of the central role of the multifunctional project team as the core of strategic development and execution, Phil also played a key part in generating and leading key initiatives to advance the integration of scientific, medical, commercial and patient inputs into strategic development and the practice of asset strategy.
Eric Lightcap, Ph.D.
Eric Lightcap is a passionate and accomplished scientist with 24 years of experience in oncology and immuno-oncology drug discovery. As a leader managing biochemists, cell biologists, computational biologists and bioinformaticians, he has a successful history of applying mechanistic studies to highly novel therapies, leveraging insights from functional and correlative genomics and proteomics with in vitro, ex vivo and in vivo studies, to inform the translation of multiple oncology assets into the clinic. These efforts led to the exploration of diverse and unexpected biology. In particular, his exploration of the mechanism of action for Velcade resulted in an appreciation of the role of the integrated stress response, especially endoplasmic reticulum stress, in sensitive models.
He has worked on both small molecule and antibody teams and served on phase 1 clinical teams for the successful development and application of pharmacodynamic and predictive biomarkers, including for Velcade (clinical pathway engagement biomarker), pevonedistat (mechanism of action leading to the clinical exploration of carboplatin combination and validation of ERCC1 as a predictive biomarker of combination benefit), TAK-676 (clinical pathway engagement biomarker) and TAK-981 (characterization as an innate immune stimulator).
Eric received a B.S. in Biochemistry with Honors from Indiana University, Bloomington; a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Northwestern University, Evanston. Eric began his work in oncology at ProScript, a small biotech company where he first worked on Velcade and neddylation, and through acquisitions transitioned to LeukoSite, Millennium, and Takeda.