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.

Joe Talamo is chief financial officer at HiberCell. He has more than 25 years of biotechnology industry experience in publicly-traded, development and commercial stage companies with expertise in capital fund raising activities and merger and acquisition transactions. Prior to joining HiberCell, Joe served as the chief financial officer of Caladrius Biosciences, Inc., where he led initiatives to raise over $150 million to fund the company’s operations, including numerous private and public offerings, and the divestiture of its contract manufacturing subsidiary.  Joe also held various senior financial positions at OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Astellas in 2010, most recently serving as its vice president and corporate controller where he helped build the accounting and finance infrastructure to support the clinical development and commercial launch of Tarceva®.  Joe began his career at KPMG in the Health Care and Life Sciences Audit Group, and currently serves as treasurer of the Cura Foundation, a public charity dedicated to raising awareness about adult stem cells and their therapeutic promise.

Joe received a B.B.A in accounting and an MBA in finance from Hofstra University. He is a certified public accountant in the State of New York.

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.

Jehan Rowlands is a seasoned and experienced regulatory strategist whose career spans over twenty years at companies including Forest, Sanofi, Otsuka, NPS, InfaCare, Actinium, and Rafael. He has worked closely with the FDA to develop and execute regulatory strategies for drug candidates for a wide range of therapeutic indications. Throughout his career, he has contributed to the development of innovative products for unmet medical needs leading to the filing and approval of Namenda, Natpara, and accelerating development and early NDA filing of stannsoporfin for neonatal hyperbilirubinemia while at InfaCare. Jehan most recently joins us from Rafael Pharmaceutical where he was Vice President, Head of Regulatory Affairs.

Jehan received his B.S. in Pharmacy as well as a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree from Rutgers University, Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy.  He also completed a post-doctoral pharmaceutical industry fellowship jointly sponsored by Rutgers University and Hoffmann-La Roche.

David Surguladze, M.D., has more than 22 years of industry experience in preclinical drug discovery and development. He has extensive leadership experience having held positions of increasing responsibility throughout his career. Prior to joining HiberCell, David served as Director of Preclinical Pharmacology at Eli Lilly and Company, where he was responsible for preclinical evaluation of a diversified portfolio of novel cancer therapeutics that included small molecules, biologics, and ADCs. Additionally, he provided support for translational biomarker identification and patient tailoring strategies working closely with members of other multidisciplinary teams, as well as utilizing external resources through CROs. As a senior scientist at Nobex Corporation, he guided preclinical drug development efforts from target identification through IND submission for multiple programs in the areas of inflammation, diabetes and CNS disorders. During David’s scientific career, his efforts have led to 15 IND submissions and 2 marketed therapies for cancer – Cyramza and Portrazza. He has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications, a book chapter, and several patents.

David is a certified general surgeon and earned his M.D. in Georgia from Tbilisi State Medical University.

José Iglesias, M.D., is consultant 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.

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.