GANDEEVA - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Chairman and Professor, Biochemistry and Molecular Biotechnology, Director, Institute for Drug Resistance, and Gladys Martin Smith Chair in Oncology, University of Massachusetts
Job Titles:
- Pro - Vice Chancellor for Innovation and Professor of Translational Medicine, Oxford University
David Karp oversees a high-performance financial management and operations team that enables Gandeeva to execute its vision.
David was previously the CFO, and then CEO, of CounterPath Corporation, a Nasdaq-listed public software company, where he drove improvement in revenue and led negotiations resulting in the company's acquisition by Alianza. Prior to CounterPath, David was CFO of Chemokine Therapeutics Corp., where he led the company's initial public offering and listing on the Toronto Stock Exchange. David was previously Chief Financial Officer of Neuro Discovery Inc., an investment management company focused on biotechnology investing. As Vice President, Investment Banking for BMO Capital Markets (Nesbitt Burns), David raised capital and managed IPOs and merger and acquisition assignments for life science companies. David holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Waterloo in Ontario and a Master's in Business Administration from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst.
Job Titles:
- Dean, Faculty of Medicine and Vice - President, Health, University of British Columbia
Don Kania was the Chief Executive Officer of FEI Company, a world-leading manufacturer of electron microscopes, from 2006 until the company was sold in 2016 to Thermo Fisher over four billion dollars. In addition to serving as the Board Chair at Gandeeva Therapeutics, Don is a board member at Intuitive Surgical (ISRG), Nanostring (NSTG) and venture funded DNA Script and Lumicks BV. He serves on the non-profit boards of the United Way of Jackson County Oregon and the Family Nurturing Center. Prior board experience includes director roles at Leupold & Stevens, Inc., FEI Company, American Science & Engineering Inc. (ASEI), and Aldevron. Don received his PhD in engineering and MS in physics from the University of Michigan and currently serves on the advisory board of Michigan's College of Engineering.
Job Titles:
- Vice President, Human Resources
Donna Wong leads all the people strategy, programs, and initiatives to deliver on Gandeeva's strategic objectives while also cultivating an inclusive and positive employee culture and experience. Donna brings a wealth of knowledge from over 20 years in leadership HR roles within the life sciences, technology and consulting industries. Her vast experience with start-up and mature companies includes leading international HR programs through initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, talent acquisition and retention, total compensation and rewards, and environment, social and governance (ESG) initiatives. Donna holds a Chartered Professional in Human Resources (CPHR) designation in Canada and remains a lifelong learner by participating in numerous industry and professional development programs.
Job Titles:
- Director, Max - Planck - Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Göttingen
Job Titles:
- Corporate Vice President and General Manager Cloud Enterprise and Artificial Intelligence Solutions Group Intel Corporation
Job Titles:
- Executive Vice President, Drug Discovery
Jason Crawford oversees drug development at Gandeeva Therapeutics by translating structural insights derived from cryo-EM and computational predictions into novel medicines. Jason held roles of increasing scientific responsibility and portfolio oversight at adMare BioInnovations (formerly CDRD), with the most senior role as Venture Partner. Prior to adMare, Jason was at AnorMED Inc. where he was a Manager of Development Chemistry and led the drug substance CMC efforts to enable pre-clinical and outsourced GMP production for AMD070 for preclinical to Phase 2 clinical trials, and for plerixafor (Mozobil) for Phase 2 through to regulatory approval. Jason also held medicinal chemistry roles at AnorMED and Microcide Inc. Jason received his BSc and PhD from the University of Victoria and conducted postdoctoral research at Ohio State University.
Job Titles:
- Business Development Advisor
Job Titles:
- Medical Oncologist, Independent Consultant
Dr. Joseph Purvis is a Board Certified medical oncologist, with more than 35 years of pharmaceutical drug development experience in support of a wide range of molecules, including cytotoxics, hormonal agents, targeted small molecules and biologics. He has developed and conducted trials in all phases of global drug development, and has had significant experience working with regulatory authorities, particularly in North America and the EMEA. His regulatory experience includes oversight and preparation of documents for meetings and registration files, multiple meetings with regulatory authorities and advisors, as well as presentation at FDA Oncology Drug Advisory Committee (ODAC).
Dr. Purvis was an Attending Physician in the Hematology/Oncology Dept. at the Cleveland Clinic from 1981-86 after a fellowship at the Mayo Clinic. Next was Burroughs Wellcome where he led the development program for Navelbine®. He then joined Sanofi Pharmaceuticals, where he led the Team that licensed and developed Eloxatin®. Subsequently, he joined AstraZeneca, as the Development Lead for Breast and Prostate cancer, then led the US Oncology/Infection physician group. In 2008, he joined Wyeth as Assistant VP & Global Head for Oncology Medical Affairs. After the Pfizer acquisition in 2010, he joined Otsuka as VP & Global Head for Oncology Clinical Development, where he remained until June 2013. He joined Quintiles (now IQVIA) and was VP and Global Therapeutic Area Head for Oncology until June 2018. Since that time, he has provided independent expert consultation to a number of companies.
Dr. Purvis obtained his A.B. in Physics from Haverford College, and his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Hartford Hospital, and fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Mayo Clinic.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Managing Director and Co - Founder of Lux Capital
Josh Wolfe is Managing Director and co-founder of Lux Capital, a venture capital firm he co-founded in 2000, and Director at Shapeways, Strateos, Lux Research, Kallyope, CTRL-labs, Variant, and Varda. He previously worked in investment banking at Salomon Smith Barney and in capital markets at Merrill Lynch. Josh is a columnist with Forbes and Editor for the Forbes/Wolfe Emerging Tech Report. He has been invited to The White House and Capitol Hill to advise on nanotechnology and emerging technologies, and a lecturer at MIT, Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia and NYU. He is a term member at The Council on Foreign Relations and Chairman of Coney Island Prep charter school, where he grew up in Brooklyn. He graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in Economics and Finance.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Senior Director of Venture Investments at Leaps
Lee Cooper is the Senior Director of Venture Investments at Leaps by Bayer and serves on the boards of multiple Leaps portfolio companies. Lee has over 10 years of experience in bringing new health technologies to patients and teaches bio-innovation at Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering. Prior to joining Leaps, Lee was Entrepreneur-in-Residence with RA Capital and founder of Enlight Bio, a patient-centered genomics company inspired by his own experience with genetic disease. Lee also worked in corporate development for Moderna Therapeutics to help advance novel mRNA vaccines and therapeutics. He has written for Wired, Slate, Neo.Life and STAT News. Lee earned his JD and MBA from Columbia University where he was a Stone Scholar, and graduated with honors from Dartmouth College with an AB in Religion and Public Policy. He lives outside Boston with his wife and two young children, all of whom enjoy the natural beauty of New England.
Job Titles:
- Director, Vancouver Prostate Centre, and Distinguished Professor and Head, Department of Urologic Sciences, University of British Columbia
Job Titles:
- Chief Medical Officer
- Consultant
Rohan studied Biological Sciences at the University of Oxford and earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He grew up in a small wine-growing town in southern Germany, and is a soccer fan and an aspiring tennis player.
Job Titles:
- Scientific Vice President Head, Induced Proximity Platform Amgen, Inc
Ryan Potts obtained his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from UT Southwestern in 2007. In 2008 he was awarded the Sara and Frank McKnight junior faculty position at UT Southwestern Medical Center and appointed as Assistant Professor in the Departments of Physiology, Pharmacology, and Biochemistry in 2011. In 2016 his lab moved to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital where he was an Associate Member in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. In 2020, he moved to Amgen as Executive Director of Research and Head of the Induced Proximity Platform that is focused on empowering multi-specific, induced proximity therapeutic modalities through bold, creative science to expand the druggable genome and reimaging the future of drug discovery. In 2021, he took over leadership of Amgen's Postdoctoral Fellows Program aimed at training the next generation of industry scientists. In recognition to his important contributions at Amgen, he was promoted to Scientific Vice President in 2023.
Sriram Subramaniam is globally recognized for his leading contributions in cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). He was the first to show that protein structures at resolutions of 2 Å could be determined using cryo-EM methods. He was also the first to show that cryo-EM could be used to visualize drug binding to clinically relevant targets at atomic resolution, revolutionizing the landscape of drug discovery. Sriram has continued to stay at the forefront of the cryo-EM field by advancing the technology and repeatedly demonstrating that clinically important protein targets can be visualized at high resolution. His other significant contributions include structural studies of membrane proteins using electron crystallography, the development of electron tomographic methods to study HIV-1, influenza, and related viruses for vaccine development, and in pioneering focused ion beam technologies for cell and tissue imaging. Sriram received his PhD in Physical Chemistry from Stanford University and completed postdoctoral training in the Departments of Chemistry and Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Job Titles:
- Senior Director, Structural Biology and Cryo - EM Operations
Tom Ceska oversees the structural biology efforts at Gandeeva Therapeutics, encompassing the technical aspects of cryo-EM analysis and algorithm improvements. Tom is an experienced structural biologist with over 20 years in the pharmaceutical industry, working on drug discovery projects and in collaborations with structural biology CROs. Most recently, Tom led a crystallography and cryo-EM group at UCB at the Slough, UK research site, where he developed this capability in-house and integrated it with CADD (Computer Aided Drug Design). He spearheaded joining the Cambridge Cryo-EM consortium to gain access to high-end electron microscopes. Tom is experienced in drug discovery, both as a project leader and in project steering teams, resulting in translation of discovered molecules to the clinic. His innovation in discovering novel molecules is exemplified in three granted patents, in different modalities and for different diseases. Tom received his BSc at Carleton University in Ottawa, his PhD at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, and conducted postdoctoral research with Dr. Richard Henderson at the MRC laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK. He received his MBA from the Open University (Milton Keynes).