PROTEGO BIOPHARMA - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Vice President of Finance and Administration
• VP of Finance and Administration

Deborah Tower is the Vice President of Finance and Administration. A graduate of San Diego State University and a Certified Public Accountant, Deborah started her career working at Deloitte, a big 4 accounting firm working primarily in high tech and manufacturing. She subsequently focused her career on start-up private and public biotechnology companies in the San Diego area. At Protego, she is part of the starting management team leading the company's accounting, finance and administrative operations where she is responsible for accounting, budgeting, HR, finance and internal controls. Prior to Protego, she was VP, Finance & Administration of Reneo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: RPHM) from inception through IPO and Controller and Director of Administration at AmpliPhi Biosciences Corporation (now Armata Pharmaceuticals (NYSE American: ARMP). Earlier in her career she was a key member of and start up management and IPO teams at Vical, Inc., Sequana Therapeutics and Aurora Biosciences.

Job Titles:

• Partner
• Partner, Lightspeed Venture Partners

Dr. Shelley Chu joined Lightspeed as a Partner in 2020 to lead its biotechnology investment arm. She brings two decades of investing and operating experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Her passion is working closely with entrepreneurs to navigate scientific, clinical, regulatory, business development, and commercial hurdles, in order to bring to market innovative new medicines that address significant unmet needs. To date, her investments across all stages, from seed to growth, have led to seven new drug approvals (NDAs) by the FDA, nine drug candidates in active clinical development, and 16 exits through mergers and acquisitions, IPOs, or partnerships-all of which exemplify her personal mission of "doing well by doing good." At Gilead Sciences, where Dr. Chu led R&D strategy across all therapeutic areas and business development in immuno-oncology and hepatitis B virus, three NDAs were approved and launched. Since joining Lightspeed, Dr. Chu has led the firm's new biotech investments in multiple seed, Series A, and crossover companies. She is a current or former member of the board of directors at Enlaza Therapeutics, Abata Therapeutics, 3T Biosciences, Medikine, Scorpion Therapeutics, Tizona Therapeutics (acquired by Gilead Sciences), Trishula Therapeutics (partnered with AbbVie), SFJ Pharmaceuticals, Phathom Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: PHAT), IFM Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb), IFM Tre (acquired by Novartis), IFM Due (partnered with Novartis), IFM Quattro, Q32, and Venatorx Pharmaceuticals. Previous investments in which Shelley worked closely with the senior management team and board include Stromedix (acquired by Biogen), Rempex (acquired by The Medicines Company), Tobira (NASDAQ: TBRA; acquired by Allergan), Anaptys (NASDAQ: ANAB), Marcadia (acquired by Roche), Calixa (acquired by Cubist Pharmaceuticals), and Cerexa (acquired by Forest Laboratories). Dr. Chu holds an MD and a PhD in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and a BA in molecular biology from Princeton University, where she serves as Co-Chair of the Princeton alumni school committee. She is also a member of the scientific advisory board for BioCentury and the advisory committee for BIO Investor Forum.

Job Titles:

• Managing Director, MPM Capital
• Senior Vice President and CFO of Affymetrix

Ed Hurwitz, an accomplished biotech executive and investor, is a Managing Director at MPM Capital. He serves as Chairman of MPM portfolio companies BioIntervene and Rekindle Therapeutics, and is on the board of Dyne Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DYN) and Protego.

Job Titles:

• VP Chemistry

H. Michael Petrassi brings more than 20 years of medicinal chemistry and drug discovery experience to Protego. Michael was most recently San Diego Site Head and Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry at Treeline Biosciences. Prior to Treeline he was Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry at Calibr at Scripps Research. He led discovery chemistry research teams across multiple disease areas in order to translate innovative Scripps Research discoveries into clinical-stage compounds. Dr. Petrassi began his career in drug discovery at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation, where he led the medicinal chemistry efforts on several projects, most notably in regenerative medicine, which delivered clinical-stage assets into the Novartis pipeline. He earned his PhD in organic chemistry from the Scripps Research Institute, and a BS in chemistry from the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Job Titles:

• Senior Managing Director
• Managing Director, Vida Ventures

Helen S. Kim is a Senior Managing Director at Vida Ventures.

Job Titles:

• Co - Founder, Professor, the Scripps Research Institute

Jeffery W. Kelly is the Lita Annenberg Hazen Professor of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Kelly is a leading expert on protein homeostasis and misfolding diseases. Among many of his contributions is translating a genetic observation into a mechanistic understanding of transthyretin amyloid disease. This facilitated his discovery of the first regulatory-agency-approved drug (tafamidis vyndaqel; marketed by Pfizer) that slows the progression of familial amyloid polyneuropathy (a neurodegenerative disease) as well as familial and sporadic TTR cardiomyopathy (a disease leading to heart failure). Dr. Kelly has published over 375 scientific papers (ISI h-index > 100) in the general area of chemistry and chemical biology. He has placed 44 trainees in academia and over 70 trainees in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries and cofounded three biotech companies. Kelly's efforts have been recognized with numerous awards, most recently the 2022 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Dr. Kelly received his BS in chemistry from Fredonia University, his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1986), and performed postdoctoral research in bio-organic chemistry at The Rockefeller University.

Job Titles:

• Professor, the Scripps Research Institute

Luke Wiseman is Professor (joint appointment) of Chemical Physiology, as well as Professor of Molecular Medicine, at The Scripps Research Institute. He is a leading expert on understanding the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR), including how organellar stress-responsive signaling pathways integrate to regulate cellular protein homeostasis in response to genetic, environmental, or aging-related insults. Through these efforts, Dr. Wiseman's laboratory is defining how alterations in stress-responsive signaling contribute to the onset and pathogenesis of human disease. The lab is also working to identify specific aspects of stress-responsive signaling pathways that can be therapeutically accessed to correct pathologic imbalances in protein homeostasis associated with etiologically diverse diseases. Dr. Wiseman received his BS in chemistry from the University of Virginia and his PhD in chemistry from The Scripps Research Institute.

Job Titles:

• Scientist
• Co - Founder, VP Biology
• VP, Head of Biology

Xin Jiang serves as VP, Head of Biology. Dr. Jiang is an experienced scientist and entrepreneur with more than 20 years' experience in protein folding, computational biology, therapeutic target validation, translational research, and small-molecule and biologics drug discovery. Prior to joining Protego, Dr. Jiang held a variety of roles of increasing responsibility in discovery research at Pfizer and Polaris Pharma, where she initiated and led multiple projects in oncology and new technology evaluation. Through these endeavors, she has gained broad expertise across all phases of drug discovery and early development. Dr. Jiang holds a PhD in biophysics from Rutgers University, where she studied under Dr. Ramy Farid. She received her postdoctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute in the laboratory of Dr. Jeffery W. Kelly.