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.
Julio Aguirre-Ghiso, Ph.D.
Julio A. Aguirre-Ghiso, PhD, is an Endowed Professor of Cell Biology and founding Director of the Cancer Dormancy and Tumor Microenvironment Institute at the Albert Einstein Cancer Center in New York City, where he co-directs the Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center and co-leads the Tumor Microenvironment and Metastasis Program also at the Cancer Center. He is also a member of the Stem Cell Institute and Aging Research Institute at Einstein. Previously, he was an Endowed Mount Sinai Chair of Cancer Biology in the Departments of Medicine (Hematology and Medical Oncology), Otolaryngology, and Oncological Sciences and Co-Leader of the Cancer Mechanisms Program at The Tisch Cancer Institute at Icahn School of Medicine School of Medicine in New York City, where he retains and Adjunct Professor position. He is also President of the Metastasis Research Society and has served at several leadership levels at AACR. He received his PhD from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1997 and completed his post-doctoral training as a Charles H. Revson Fellow at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in 2003. He became an Assistant Professor at SUNY-Albany the same year and since 2008 he was at ISMMS where he joined as Associate Professor and reached the rank of Professor in 2014 and of Endowed Chair in 2020. His work focuses on understanding the biology of residual cancer cells that persist in a dormant state after initial therapy. His research team led, along with others, a paradigm shift, revealing novel cancer biology that diverges from the notion that cancer is perpetually proliferating. His work has been published in top tier journals such as Nature, Nature Cell Biology, JEM, Nature Cancer, Science and Cancer Cell among others. His team discovered that reciprocal crosstalk between disseminated tumor cells and the microenvironment regulates the inter-conversion between dormancy and proliferation of metastasis. His lab has also provided mechanistic advances to the understanding of the process of early dissemination in breast cancer and how it contributes to dormancy and metastatic progression. His work also has mechanistically explored how adaptive pathways such as the unfolded protein response allow cancer cells to persist while quiescent. This knowledge enables targeting residual cancer before it becomes clinically detectable and thus preventing recurrences. His research, which has been applied in clinical studies, is revealing ways to maintain residual cancer dormancy, kill dormant cancer cells, and utilize markers to determine the dormant or active state of disseminated cancer cells.
Daniel Bollag, Ph.D.
Daniel Bollag, Ph.D., is a regulatory consultant for HiberCell. Dan has spent over 30 years in the biotech/pharmaceutical industry and has been a regulatory consultant since 2020.
Dan has extensive experience leading regulatory and quality teams, having served as Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs & Quality at both Ariad Pharmaceuticals and Ocular Therapeutix. In his tenures, he oversaw the approval of the ocular insert Dextenza for ocular inflammation and pain following ophthalmic surgery and the accelerated approvals of Iclusig and Alunbrig for chronic myeloid leukemia and ALK-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, respectively. Earlier in his career, Dan held senior regulatory and project management roles at Genzyme, Sanofi, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck.
Dan received his PhD in biochemistry from Cornell University.
Richard Huhn, M.D.
Richard Huhn, MD is consulting to HiberCell as Senior Medical Director. Prior to this role, Dr. Huhn was Senior Medical Director at Ambrx, Boehringer Ingelheim and Biothera, directing development of antineoplastic biological agents. Dr. Huhn was formally trained in Hematology (focus on cellular and gene therapies) at the US National Institutes of Health and previously in Clinical Pharmacology in the Brown University medical program. He has held positions as Medical Director of the NJ Cord Blood Bank and stem cell research program at the Coriell Institute, and as Medical Reviewer in the Office of Cellular, Tissue and Gene Therapy at the US Food and Drug Administration, as well as various roles in basic and clinical Oncology and Hematology research programs in academia and pharma/biotechnology programs.
Philip Rowlands, Ph.D.
As a Clinical Development Advisor, 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.