IMMUNOS THERAPEUTICS - Key Persons
Claudia Berger is a proven expert in the field of clinical development and has been focusing on clinical trial operations and project management for more than 15 years. Before joining ImmunOs Therapeutics, she served as Director Clinical Operations at Inflazome Ltd, an Irish company recently acquired by Roche. Prior to that, she headed clinical operations at several biopharmaceutical companies such as Kinarus AG and Delenex Therapeutics, leading Phase I/II clinical programs, including profiling, biomarker and proof-of-concept studies with both biologics and small molecules and establishing quality assurance systems. From 2007 to 2012, she held several positions of increasing responsibility at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR), most recently as Principal Clinical Scientist. Claudia Berger holds a Master of Science Degree in Pharmacy and a Diploma as a University Professional of Advanced Studies in Pharmaceutical Medicine.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President
- SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT CMC and TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT
Constanze Guenther has been Senior Vice President, CMC and Technical Development of ImmunOs since August 2023. Constanze has more than 20 years of experience in technical development and operations of biologics, including 13 years at Novartis in different roles with increasing responsibilities in technical and operational leadership. She has expertise in the development and manufacturing of a broad range of modalities, including antibodies, therapeutic proteins, bio-conjugates, and CAR-T assets, and has advanced several therapeutic candidates through clinical development to commercial launch. Constanze received an executive MBA from HSG (St. Gallen, Switzerland), and holds a PhD in protein biotechnology and a diploma in biology, both from University of Halle, Germany.
Job Titles:
- CLINICAL ADVISOR
- Managing Director of the National Center for Tumor Diseases ( NCT ) Heidelberg
Dirk Jäger is Managing Director of the National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT) Heidelberg, Medical Director of the Medical Oncology Department at the Heidelberg University Hospital (UKHD), and is Head of the Clinical Cooperation Unit Applied Tumor-Immunity at the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). Dr. Jäger studied medicine at the Universities of Lübeck and Freiburg and received his MD degree in Freiburg in 1991. He specialized in the field of internal medicine and received his venia legendi at the University of Mainz in 2003. Dr. Jäger started his scientific career at Cornell Medical Center in the tumor immunology group of Yao Chen and Lloyd Old (Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research). Before he was appointed to his current positions he was head of the Tumor Immunology Laboratory of the Oncology Department, University Hospital Zurich. At NCT, Dirk Jäger is responsible for all patient care programs and counseling services. His research focuses on unmasking the full potential of the immune system to eliminate tumor cells. As part of this he specializes in development of advanced methods and drugs to characterize and manipulate tumor-host interactions, especially via modulation of the tumor environment. Dr. Jäger has shown that combinatorial immunotherapies can lead to clinical responses in otherwise non-responsive tumors. Further, his team engages in projects developing and validating cellular therapies, bispecific antibodies, and computer-based algorithms in tumor immunology. He has set up strategic alliances with several public institutions as well as with pharmaceutical industry. He is involved in over 100 clinical trials and builds on this foundation to further contribute to personalized cancer immunotherapy.
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator
- CLINICAL ADVISOR
Dmitriy Zamarin, MD PhD is a medical oncologist and Translational Research Director in the Gynecologic Medical Oncology Service at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Zamarin obtained his MD and PhD degrees from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He completed residency in Internal Medicine at the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he worked under the mentorship of Dr. James Allison and Dr. Jedd Wolchok, studying the mechanisms of response and resistance to immunomodulatory antibody therapy and oncolytic virus-based therapeutics.
Dr. Zamarin is a principal investigator and a translational chair on several institutional and cooperative group clinical trials exploring novel immunotherapy combinations in gynecologic cancers and other solid tumors. His clinical and laboratory research are focused on characterization of biomarkers in patients undergoing immunotherapy and on development of novel immunotherapeutic strategies using immunomodulatory antibodies and genetically-engineered oncolytic viruses. Specifically, by manipulating the oncolytic viruses and the immune system, Dr. Zamarin is exploring different ways to enhance the immune recognition of tumors and to develop novel treatment strategies that could overcome resistance to immune checkpoint blockade. For his work, Dr. Zamarin has received multiple awards, including Damon Runyon Foundation Fellowship Award, Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Liz Tilberis Early Career Award, and the Ovarian Cancer Academy Grant from the Department of Defense.
Dr. Andreas Jurgeit is a Partner with the life science team of GIMV, a publicly listed (Euronext:GIMV) private equity and venture capital investor.
Previously, Andreas worked with the venture capital arm of Lundbeckfonden and at Merck Ventures where he was responsible for investments and company creation in Europe, the United States, and Israel. Andreas started his career at Redalpine Venture Partners and has operational experience in drug discovery, business development, and M&A.
Dr. Daniel Vasella served as Chairman of Novartis AG, a leading global medicines company, from 1999 until 2013 and as Chief Executive Officer of Novartis from 1996 to 2010. Previously, Daniel held the positions of Chief Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Senior Vice President, Head of Worldwide Development, and Head of Corporate Marketing at Sandoz Pharma Ltd. He currently is currently working as a director, strategic advisor, and coach to senior executives, and serves on the boards of PepsiCo, American Express Company, SciClone Pharmaceuticals, and several biotech companies.
Job Titles:
- HEAD of NON - CLINICAL DEVELOPMENT
- Research and Development Executive
Dr. Darryl H. Patrick is a pharmaceutical research and development executive specializing in non-clinical development for over 30 years. He was Vice President, Exploratory Development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals and responsible for all non-clinical development activities and clinical pharmacology directing programs through to proof-of-concept. While at Vertex, he was a member of the management team and responsible for the first NCE developed within the Company. Darryl began his career at Merck/MSD Research Laboratories, working in numerous roles over 20 years and ultimately serving as Vice President/Head, Worldwide Safety Assessment. In this function, he was responsible for all non-clinical aspects of potential drug development candidates, including toxicologic evaluation, definition of pre-clinical drug development candidate plans, interaction with drug development teams, and preparation of regulatory submissions including INDs/NDAs.
Dr. Joseph Leveque has over a decade of experience in the development of immuno-oncology therapeutics. He is currently President, Chief Medical Officer, and a Director of Medikine. Prior to Medikine, Joe was Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of Mirati Therapeutics. His previous roles include Chief Medical Officer of Synthorx, a company acquired by Sanofi, and Chief Medical Officer of ARMO Biosciences, an immuno-oncology company acquired by Eli Lilly. Earlier in his career, Joe was Chief Medical Officer of EMD Serono, the North American subsidiary of Merck KGaA, and Vice President and Head of US Medical Oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Job Titles:
- DIRECTOR
- General Partner of BioMedPartners AG
Dr. Markus Hosang is a General Partner of BioMedPartners AG. Before joining BioMedPartners, Markus was a Venture Partner at MPM Capital, where he was co-responsible for European deal flow, managed MPM's European office in Munich, and served on the boards of several portfolio companies. Prior to joining MPM, Markus was at Roche, where he served for nearly 20 years in several senior management positions in the Pharma R&D organization, including VP and Director of the International Pharma Research Strategy Unit and Chief of Staff to the President of Roche Global R&D.
Job Titles:
- DIRECTOR
- Executive Director
Dr. Michael Baran is Executive Director, Pfizer Worldwide Research and Development and a Partner at Pfizer Ventures, where he is responsible for identifying, evaluating, making and managing equity investments aligned with the strategy of Pfizer. Prior to his current position, Mike held roles in R&D portfolio strategy as well as managing scientific affairs for the R&D President's office at Pfizer. Mike joined Pfizer from Nexomics Biosciences, a structural biology biotech company which he co-founded. He previously worked within the NIH Protein Structure Initiative's Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium coordinating protein structure production efforts.
Job Titles:
- CHAIRMAN of the BOARD
- Associate Professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Dr. Michael Curran is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Scientific Director of the Oncology Research for Biologics and Immunotherapy Translation (ORBIT) platform, which coordinates development and production of clinical immunotherapeutic antibodies based on novel targets and preclinical reagents originating at MD Anderson. He also has established an independent lab at MD Anderson, where his group studies the origins of the immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and strategies for its disruption to facilitate immune-mediated tumor rejection.
Job Titles:
- CHAIRMAN of the BOARD
- CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
- Member of the CHAIRMAN of the BOARD
Dr. Reinhard Ambros has held international leadership positions in venture capital, corporate strategy, BD&L and pharmaceutical product development. From 2005 through 2017, Reinhard developed and led the Novartis Venture Fund to become one of the largest corporate biotechnology venture funds in the life sciences industry. Previously, he served as head of group strategic planning and BD&L for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases for Novartis Corporation and Novartis Pharma AG, respectively. Reinhard serves on the boards of public and private biotechnology companies in Europe and the United States, and as an advisor to German and Swiss Government Biotechnology Funds.
Job Titles:
- SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR
- Head of Onco - Immunology Services at OnkoZentrum Zurich Hirslanden
Dr. Ulf Petrausch is head of onco-immunology services at OnkoZentrum Zurich Hirslanden and President of the Swiss Tumor Immunology Institute, with more than 13 years of expertise in immunology, experimental clinical immunotherapy and oncology. Previous roles include head of the clinical onco-immunology program and head of the laboratory for experimental onco-immunology at the University of Zurich.
Job Titles:
- SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT for ANTIBODY DEVELOPMENT
- Vice President for Antibody Development and Protein Engineering at ImmunOs
Hilmar Ebersbach has been Vice President for Antibody Development and Protein Engineering at ImmunOs since Oct 2022. He has more than 20 years of experience in research and development of biologics including 15 years at Novartis/NIBR in different roles with increasing responsibilities in scientific and operational leadership. Hilmar has expertise in the development of a broad range of modalities, including therapeutic and multi-specific proteins, bio-conjugates, and CAR-T and AAV based assets, and has advanced a number of therapeutic candidates from early research into clinical development in the fields immuno-oncology and autoimmune disease. Hilmar has contributed to numerous scientific publications and granted patents, completed post-doctoral training in the Plückthun lab at University of Zurich, and holds a PhD in protein engineering and a diploma in biochemistry, both from University of Halle, Germany.
Job Titles:
- CHIEF BUSINESS OFFICER
- CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER
- Chief Operating Officer and Chief Business Officer of ImmunOs
Jeff Abbey has been Chief Operating Officer and Chief Business Officer of ImmunOs since August 2021. Jeff brings over twenty years of expertise in the development of innovative biopharma ceutical products and has a strong track record in business development and capital markets transactions in the U.S. and Europe, including private and public placements, in- and out-licensing, and joint ventures. Jeff spent over 16 years at Argos Therapeutics, Durham, NC, USA, serving as CEO for over eight years and, prior to that, as VP Business Development. He led Argos through completion of a phase 3 trial, raised over $250 million in equity financings, including an IPO on NASDAQ, and completed numerous partnering transactions with international biopharmaceutical companies. Jeff received a bachelor's degree from Brown University and an MBA and JD from the University of Virginia.
Job Titles:
- DIRECTOR
- Venture Partner With Samsara BioCapital
Marcos Milla is a Venture Partner with Samsara BioCapital. Previously, Marcos was the Head of Synthorx, a Sanofi company, and was the Chief Scientific Officer of Synthorx until its acquisition by Sanofi. Marcos has over 25 years of biopharmaceutical development experience across the areas of autoimmunity and inflammation, immuno-oncology, and neurosciences and pain, having held industry positions at Adaptive Biotechnologies, Janssen R&D, Roche, and GlaxoSmithKline, and a faculty appointment at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania. Marcos is currently on the faculty of Skaags School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences of University of California - San Diego.
Job Titles:
- CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER
- CO - FOUNDER
Dr. Osiris Marroquin Belaunzaran brings over 15 years of research expertise in the fields of immuno-oncology and autoimmunity. He earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Biotechnology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne. As a founding member of the executive leadership team, he played the leading role in company creation and business development, including raising equity capital. Osiris is an inventor of several granted patents and continues to lead scientific innovation at ImmunOs R&D facilities. His expertise covers multiple areas of research including drug discovery, protein engineering, antibody development, immunology, drug delivery systems, and pre-clinical work.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- SCIENTIFIC ADVISOR
Paul Bowness is a Consultant Rheumatologist at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre (since 1999) and Professor of Experimental Rheumatology, Nuffield Department of Orthopaedics, Rheumatology and Musculoskeletal science (NDORMS), Oxford University (since 2011). He trained at Cambridge University and then undertook postgraduate training in London. He studied under Andrew McMichael and received a DPhil (PhD) in Immunology from Oxford University in 1993.
His principle research interests are in the immunology of Spondyloarthritis. He has published over 90 peer-reviewed articles in major scientific journals and has written reviews and chapters in textbooks including in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine. He was elected to ASAS in 2009 and was co-president of the International Congress of the Spondyloarthropathies for 2012.
Job Titles:
- CLINICAL ADVISOR
- Director, Department of Molecular Imaging
Prof. Andrew Scott is Director, Department of Molecular Imaging and Therapy, Austin Health; leads the Tumour Targeting Program at the Olivia Newton-John Cancer Research Institute; and Professor, University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, and Monash University. His clinical and research interests are focused on developing innovative strategies for targeted therapy of cancer with monoclonal antibodies, molecular imaging particularly oncology applications of PET in cancer, and as well as global advocacy of Nuclear Medicine. His laboratory has been involved in the preclinical development and first-in-man trials of numerous recombinant antibodies in cancer patients, and seven antibodies developed in his laboratory have been licenced to Biotech and Pharma companies. He has published 373 peer reviewed papers and 22 book chapters, and is an inventor on 21 patents.
Job Titles:
- CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER
- CO - FOUNDER
- Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Basel
Prof. Dr. Christoph Renner is a Professor of Medical Oncology at the University of Basel. Previous appointments include Head of the Department of Internal Medicine and Oncology, Head of the Cancer Center, Head of the division of Clinical Immunology and Professor for Clinical and Experimental Oncology at the University of Zurich. Christoph joined the Swiss Tumor Institute in January 2013 and started a Cancer Center Initiative Network. He has a strong background in antibody engineering and has been an affiliate of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research for more than 15 years and a senior physician specialist in oncology, onco-immunology and internal medicine at Hirslanden Hospital Zurich. Prof. Dr. Renner is a member of different research organizations and has served on the board of the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research for six years.
Shelley Chu is a Partner with Lightspeed Venture Partners and has two decades of venture investing and operating experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. At Lightspeed, Shelley leads the firm's biotech investments from seed to late stage. Previously, Shelley was at Gilead, where she led R&D strategy across all therapeutic areas and business development in immuno-oncology and HBV. Shelley serves on the boards of numerous biotechnology companies and on the scientific advisory board for BioCentury.
Job Titles:
- CHIEF DEVELOPMENT OFFICER
- Chief Development Officer of ImmunOs
Steve Coats has been Chief Development Officer of ImmunOs since December 2021. He has over 25 years of experience as a biopharmaceutical research and development executive, leading non-clinical, clinical and technology teams to develop innovative biologic-based therapies using multiple technology platforms in a variety of therapeutic areas. Steve spent over 15 years at AstraZeneca/MedImmune, most recently serving as VP of R&D, where he led global project teams developing novel biologic therapies through IND/CTA filings and proof of concept phase 2 clinical trials. Prior to AstraZeneca, Steve was a research director at Amgen where he led research and discovery teams for both small molecules as well as biologic therapies. Steve completed post-doctoral training at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle with a focus on signal transduction and the cell cycle. He holds a Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology from Vanderbilt University and a B.A. from the University of New Hampshire.
Dr. Taha Merghoub co-directs the Ludwig Collaborative Laboratory and the Swim Across America Laboratory at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). He is a member researcher of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy at MSK and also leads the biorepository for the melanoma and immunotherapeutics service at MSK.