Before starting the company in 2018, Laura was a Vice President in Oncology at Eli Lilly where she led cancer discovery and translational discovery teams in NY and Indianapolis. She worked closely with the clinical teams to support multiple clinical programs, most notably the ramucirumab program from Phase 2 to commercial launch in colorectal, gastric, and non-small cell lung cancers. Additionally, she helped build the cross-functional initiative to discover, test and advance biomarker development in oncology clinical trials across the portfolio. Prior to joining Lilly, Laura spent 10 years as a tenure track professor in the Department of Pathology at Harvard Medical School. During this time, she supported and mentored Ph.D. students, postdocs and medical students with NIH and foundation grants. When she left Harvard in 2009, Laura was an Associate Professor and was co-Director of the Vascular Biology Center at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Both Laura’s postdoctoral work and academic research at Harvard focused on cellular and molecular mechanisms driving cancer, with a particular interest in the role of the microenvironment on cancer progression and response to targeted therapies. Laura received a B.A. in Biology from Barnard College, Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania.

Manos Perros, Ph.D., is a pharmaceutical and biotech executive with over 25 years of experience in life sciences R&D. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer, co-founder and Director of Entasis Therapeutics since from 2015 until its acquisition by Innoviva in 2022. Under his leadership, Entasis built a pipeline of novel pathogen-targeted antibiotics, including SUL-DUR which successfully completed Phase 3 clinical trials in 2021. Prior to this, Dr. Perros worked for AstraZeneca as Vice-President and Head of its Infection R&D organization and as Site Head for its research center in Waltham, Massachusetts. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Dr. Perros served as Director of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases in Singapore, and prior to that, as Vice-President and Chief Scientific Officer, Antivirals, at Pfizer, where he also directed research in a variety of therapeutic areas including Obesity, Pain and Urology. A chemist by training, Dr. Perros conducted his Ph.D. work in Belgium, France and Germany, and was an Associate in the Biophysics department at Yale from 1993 to 1995. Dr. Perros received the PhRMA Discoverer’s Award in 2010 for the discovery and development of Selzentry, a first-in-class treatment for HIV.

Dr. Youssoufian is a physician-scientist with more than 25 years of experience in drug development working with seed-stage ventures to multi-national biotech and pharmaceutical corporations. After a successful academic career as a clinician, teacher and NIH-funded investigator, he held increasingly senior roles in clinical and translational science at Bristol-Myers Squibb (Head of Experimental Medicine), Sanofi Aventis (Distinguished Scientist), ImClone (CMO), Ziopharm Oncology (President of R&D and CMO), Progenics (EVP of R&D), and BIND (CMO). He supported or led the development and approval of a number of medicines including Sprycel, Taxotere, Erbitux, Cyramza, Lartruvo and Copiktra. He is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the recipient of many national and international awards, and the author of more than 100 publications. He received a B.S. in biology from Boston College and M.Sc./M.D. from University of Massachusetts Medical School, followed by fellowships at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and MIT.

Prior to joining OncXerna, Colleen served as Partner Therapeutics’ Chief Development Officer and Head of Regulatory and Quality. Before her move to biotech, Colleen established a distinguished career at Eli Lilly and Company spanning 20 years in oncology drug development where she held leadership roles in global regulatory, and health outcomes. Colleen’s final role at Lilly was as Verzenio global product development leader where she combined innovation with speed and empowered her team to create and execute a development strategy that led to the approval and launch of Verzenio for metastatic breast cancer, as well as the first positive early stage breast cancer study for a CDK 4&6 inhibitor. She received her B.S. in Chemistry, B.S. in Pharmacy from Butler University and an MBA from Purdue’s Krannert School of Business in 2016.

Carolyn brings over 30 years of quality expertise and experience to OncXerna. In her 27 years at Eli Lilly and Company, she held various leadership roles in the quality organization, supporting manufacturing, packaging, product complaints, development, clinical trial material, regulatory, safety, and clinical trial data, analysis and disclosure. She also had several roles outside of quality, including development project management for Zyprexa IM. Carolyn was part of the management team that led the successful GCP inspections supporting the approval of several new products including Cyramza, Trulicity, and Verzenio. After her retirement, she became an independent consultant and advised pharmaceutical companies regarding quality/compliance issues. Prior to Lilly, she was a pharmacist for Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis.

Carolyn received a B.S. in Pharmacy from Purdue University, and received a J.D. from Indiana University.

Kerry brings over 15 years of clinical drug development expertise and experience in small molecule and therapeutic protein development in rare disease and oncology indications including Head of Clinical Pharmacology and Quantitative Bioanalytics at ImmunoGen Inc., where she was responsible for clinical pharmacology strategy for global clinical and preclinical development of oncology therapies. Prior to joining ImmunoGen, Kerry spent 13 years at Sanofi Genzyme, most recently serving as a Global Project Head, where she led the therapy project teams for Fabry disease, Gaucher disease type 3 and multiple gangliosidosis/galatosialidosis indications. Kerry received a B.S. in Biochemical Pharmacology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She received a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Jon has over 20 years of extensive experience in financial controllership, planning and analysis in the healthcare industry. Prior to joining OncXerna, Jon served as Vice President of Financial Operations at Corindus Vascular Robotics, Inc., a publicly traded global technology leader in robotic-assisted vascular interventions (acquired by Siemens Healthineers Company in 2019). Previously, Jon served as Controller of the North American division of Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB, an international, publicly traded rare disease company, where he was responsible for the oversight of the finance and accounting functions for North America’s product sales. Prior to that, Jonathan served for ten years at Thermo Fisher Scientific in various finance leadership roles, most recently as Controller of a global business unit within the Portable Analytical Instruments Division and earlier in his career, served as Experienced Senior at Arthur Andersen LLP. Jonathan received a B.S. in Accounting from Providence College and is a Certified Public Accountant.

Celia brings 18 years of relevant legal and clinical experience acquired from working in the biotechnology industry, private practice and clinical research. Prior to joining OncXerna, Celia was Senior Attorney at Seres Therapeutics, Inc., where she had responsibility for legal matters including intellectual property and contract agreements to support research and development, clinical operations, manufacturing and information technology. Before joining Seres Therapeutics, Celia was the solo practitioner at the Harrison Law Office, where she specialized in U.S. patent applications in the biochemical, chemical and medical device arts as well as in patent prosecution. After completing her legal studies, Celia was a Patent Associate at Greenberg Traurig where she conducted domestic and foreign patent prosecution, licensing and intellectual property due diligence in licensing ventures and mergers and acquisitions. Earlier in her career, Celia spent eight years as a Scientist at the Boston Biomedical Research Institute and began her career as a post-doctoral fellow at the Rockefeller University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Celia continues to serve as Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Tufts University School of Medicine, a post she has held since 2009. Celia received a B.S. in Biology from Pacific Lutheran University, a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California Berkeley and a J.D. from Boston College Law School.

Andrew is an experienced oncology professional with over 30 years of proven results across the entire spectrum of pharmaceutical drug development including clinical, regulatory, and marketing functions. Andrew graduated with a B.S. in Pharmacy from the University of Maryland. He then gained clinical research experience at the National Cancer Institute and Penn State Medical Center. During a successful career at Eli Lilly, he excelled in positions with medical information, market research, regulatory and medical affairs, as well as clinical development. After retiring from Eli Lilly, he initiated successful second career in leadership role at Verastem Oncology followed by career at OncXerna Therapeutics. He has experience in multiple diverse areas and exposure to compounds at all phases of development from preclinical to late-stage clinical development.

Bill brings more than 20 years of experience in process development and the manufacturing of antibodies, recombinant enzymes, antigens, antibody targets, viral vectors and vaccines. Prior to joining OncXerna, Bill served as Vice President, CMC at Contrafect Corporation where he was responsible for all CMC activities for Contrafect’s novel biologics platform of anti-microbial therapies. Previously, Bill served as Executive Director and Manufacturing Site Head at Celldex Therapeutics, Inc., where he oversaw the Fall River GMP manufacturing facility and was responsible for internal manufacturing of all early clinical stage biologics. Bill also held roles of increasing responsibility at Syngeva BioPharma Corp. (acquired by Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in 2015), including Senior Director of Process Development. He also previously served as Head of Process Science at Pfizer, Inc., Director of Antigen Production at Genocea Biosciences Inc. and Director of Biochemistry at VaxInnate Corporation. Within the scope of technical operations, he has supported the development and manufacture of several approved biologics including Kanuma, Soliris and Strensiq. Bill received a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Florida and received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at Cornell University.

Mark brings over 15 years of translational oncology and drug discovery/development expertise through preclinical, translational, and clinical development experience in immuno-oncology and tumor microenvironment biology. Prior to joining OncXerna, Mark served as Vice President of Translational Oncology at HiberCell and Biothera Pharmaceuticals (acquired by HiberCell in 2020) leading multiple efforts to support the development of their clinical lead asset, Imprime PGG, spanning the realms of preclinical mechanism-of-action, clinical proof-of-mechanism, biomarker development, and clinical data analysis. Before Biothera, Mark was an investigator in the Oncology Division at Eli Lilly and Company where he led several small and large molecule drug discovery projects within the Cancer Angiogenesis and Tumor Microenvironment groups and also supported patient tailoring strategies for the anti-VEGFR2 agent, Cyramza.

Mark earned his B.S. in Microbiology from Colorado State University where he received a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship. While at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Mark received his Ph.D. studying the NF-kB signaling pathway and its role in T-cell activation and HTLV-I-mediated pathogenesis and conducted his post-doctoral work within the lab of Dr. Gary Johnson, first at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver and then at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, where he studied MAPK signaling pathways and elucidated the function of the scaffold protein CCM2.

An experienced leader, Becky is responsible for the global strategy and execution of cross-functional operations and program management related to drug development and business growth. Prior to joining OncXerna, Becky served in multiple roles of increasing responsibility for almost 20 years at Eli Lilly & Co., most recently as Director, Clinical Operations Implementation, where she was responsible for the global implementation of the Simplicity Clinical Trial Management System for site monitoring and central monitoring services across the company. Prior experience at Eli Lilly include sales, clinical trial management, clinical research monitoring and she also earned a Black Belt in Six Sigma. Becky began her career as a Clinical Dietitian at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Becky received a B.S. in Nutritional Sciences from the University of New Hampshire and is a registered dietitian with the American Dietetic Association.

Peter Bisgaard joined Pivotal Life Sciences as Managing Director in 2017. He has 20+ years of experience investing in biotech, medtech, diagnostics and research tools. Prior to joining Pivotal, Peter was a senior team member of Novo Ventures (US) Inc. As part of the senior team, he was responsible for overall investment and portfolio strategy with special responsibility for the ongoing development of Novo Ventures in the US. Peter joined Novo Ventures in 2001 in Denmark. Prior to Novo Ventures he was with McKinsey & Co.’s Corporate Finance and Strategy Practice. Peter is the member of —or has been a member of— the Board of Directors of a number of public and private biotech, medtech, diagnostics and research tools companies including RA Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:RARX), Nevro Corp (NYSE:NVRO), Alder Biotherapeutics (NASDAQ:ALDR), Otonomy (NASDAQ:OTIC), HTG Molecular Diagnostics (NASDAQ:HTGM), Eargo Inc, Engrail therapeutics, Maplight Therapeutics, Entasis Therapeutics, Bolt Therapeutics and Inozyme Inc. Peter has an M.Sc. in Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark and has a post graduate degree in Mathematical Modeling in Economics by the European Consortium for Mathematics in the Industry.

Benjamin joined Panacea Venture in 2018, he is a scientist, entrepreneur, investor, and merchant banker. Most recently Benjamin served as the CEO of ImaginAb, Inc. a ventured backed company developing a cutting-edge platform to address an urgent unmet need in immuno-oncology. Immediately before that, he was the Chairman and CEO of London based Immune Targeting Systems, Inc. leading the immune therapy company through significant strategic growth, innovative product development and establishing a presence in France and North America. Prior to returning to operational roles, he spent nine years as a Managing Director at Burrill & Company, a global life sciences venture firm where he evaluated investment opportunities and assisted a global clientele in completing licensing, partnering and M&A transactions. He also played a key role in establishing the Malaysian Life Sciences Fund I and served as a director. Earlier in his career as an R&D executive, he has experience in building talented research team in immunology, stem cell biology, genomics, gene therapy and molecular diagnostics in both biotechnology start-ups and multinational pharmaceutical companies including Roche Diagnostics and Novartis.

Ben received his academic training in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Stanford University. Benjamin resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Chrystyna Bedrij Stecyk, is a Principal of Griffin Securities, Inc., an investment banking firm, she co-founded in April 1997.  At Griffin Securities, Ms. Bedrij Stecyk focuses on providing business and financial services to companies and institutional investors. Ms. Bedrij Stecyk was a co-founder of Agilis Biotherapeutics (acquired by PTC Therapeutics), the first company that advanced a gene therapy that will likely be the first marketed gene therapy that is administered directly into the brain. She is also co-founder of several other private gene therapy companies and the Orion Biotech Opportunities Corp.  She also serves as a member of the board on several biotechnology companies, both private and public.  Ms. Bedrij Stecyk received an MBA in Finance from New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business and a B.A. in Economics from Vassar College.  She is also registered with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority and is a licensed General Securities Principal and Representative, Investment Banking Principal and Representative, Operations Professional, and Research Analyst.

Glenn Batchelder joined Pivotal BioVenture Partners in March 2022. Previously he was Co-Founder and CEO of Civitas Therapeutics, a development stage pulmonary delivery therapeutic company based on the ARCUS technology platform that was sold to Acorda Therapeutics.  Prior to Civitas he served as CEO of BIND Biosciences (acquired by Pfizer), CEO of Acceleron Pharma (NASDAQ: XLRN) and SVP of Operations at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Takeda).  During his more than 30 years of executive leadership experience he also served in functional roles including sales, marketing, business development, manufacturing, supply chain management and R&D.  He currently serves as Chairman of the Board for Synchronicity Pharma, Kantum Bio and XyloCor Therapeutics and serves on the Board of Directors for Synspira. He also serves on the non-profit Board of Directors for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and The Possible Project. He is the former Chairman of the Board for MassBio.