Transforming Healthcare Through
Precision & Innovation
Guided by our commitment to develop cures, we are revolutionizing inflammatory and cancer treatments.
Leadership
John Mumm
President & CEO
Pavel Khrimian
Chief Business Officer
Stanley Frankel
Senior Clinical Advisor & Interim CMO
Christopher Yaen
General Counsel
Deb Kientop
VP, Clinical Operations
Dave Boclair
VP, Technical Operations
John Mumm
President & CEO
Pavel Khrimian
Chief Business Officer
Christopher Yaen
General Counsel
Deb Kientop
VP, Clinical Operations
Dave Boclair
VP, Technical Operations
Board of Directors
John has spent over 30 years researching and developing various technologies associated with IL-10. His work experience included various leadership roles at Anergen, Introgen Therapeutics, Bacterial BarCodes, Schering-Plough, Merck, Targenics, ARMO BioSciences, ACIR BioSciences, and MedImmune/AstraZeneca. John’s primary focus has been on discovery research at the interface between cancer biology and the adaptive immune response.
Dr. Detlev Biniszkiewicz is a Managing Director at MPM BioImpact. He is currently CEO of portfolio company NextPoint Therapeutics. Detlev is a serial entrepreneur and an experienced biopharma executive who brings deep knowledge of oncology and immuno-oncology to his role.
Prior to joining MPM and BioImpact Capital, Detlev was the President and CEO of Surface Oncology (NASDAQ: SURF), where he led its growth and transformation through to clinical-stage and its preparation for a public offering. Prior to Surface Oncology, he was Vice President of Strategy in AstraZeneca’s Oncology Unit and was part of the oncology leadership that developed Lynparza® and Tagrisso®, two innovative medicines that help thousands of patients suffering from cancer. His group transformed AstraZeneca’s Oncology pipeline through numerous licensing deals, clinical and academic collaborations, and external research. Detlev has also held multiple roles at Novartis including Global Head of Portfolio, where his group provided oversight of Novartis’ research and early development portfolio.
Detlev began his career at the Boston Consulting Group and performed his academic research at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Lucio Iannone is VP of Venture Investments Health at Leaps by Bayer. He is responsible for leading the investment team in the USA and deal execution. He is also involved in the sourcing, screening, and mentoring of companies with game-changing science.
As an investor, Lucio also serves as board member for Affini-T, Vesigen, Khloris Biosciences, Immunitas Therapeutics, eGenesis and Paratus Biosciences. Before joining Leaps by Bayer, he had different roles in biotechnology companies. He has experience with molecular biology, cell and gene therapy technologies and their application in oncology, cardiovascular and other therapeutic fields.
Lucio obtained his Ph.D. in Medicine at the Imperial College of London.
Rakhshita Dhar is Senior Director of Venture Investments Health at Leaps by Bayer. She joined the team in 2021 and is responsible for search & evaluation and healthcare focused investment for Leaps. She currently sits on the board of Deka Biosciences, Gro Bio, and Edifice Health.
Prior to joining Leaps, Rakhshita was Director of Business Development at Roche Pharmaceuticals where she led collaborations with Dyno Therapeutics and Rheos Biosciences. She also spent a few years at MassBio developing an accelerator program for life-science start-ups.
She got her Undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Mumbai University and her Masters in Molecular Biology from Georgetown University.
Dr. Frank Neumann brings a record of proven leadership in cell therapy and oncology clinical development to his role as Chief Medical Officer.
Prior to joining Orna, Frank most recently served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Clinical Development at Kite, a Gilead Company. He previously held positions as Chief Medical Officer at Verastem, Inc. (also known as Verastem Oncology) and as Vice President, Head of Oncology Clinical Research at bluebird bio. In addition, Frank was clinical development head of all global cell therapy approaches at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he held various leadership roles of increasing prominence, including global clinical lead and medical team lead for two distinct cancer therapies. Earlier in his career, he was a member of the oncology medical teams at AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis.
Board certified in Hematology/Oncology, Internal Medicine and Palliative Care Medicine, Frank was a research scholar at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and is currently an assistant professor at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany, where he received his M.D. He earned his Ph.D. from the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Bonn, Germany. In addition to his role with Orna, Frank is an Entrepreneur Partner with MPM BioImpact.
Dr. Chaffee brings over 20 years of R&D, business, and corporate development experience to Deka. Most recently, he served as the chief business officer and chief financial officer of Praxis Precision Medicines. Dr. Chaffee’s business-building background in drug discovery and development includes his role as entrepreneur in residence at Atlas Venture, where he was co-founder and head of business operations at Kymera Therapeutics. Earlier in his career, Dr. Chaffee served in several roles at Biogen across finance, business development, program leadership, and corporate strategy. Dr. Chaffee received a BS in chemistry from The College of William and Mary, a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Yale University, and an MBA in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Board of Directors
John has spent over 30 years researching and developing various technologies associated with IL-10. His work experience included various leadership roles at Anergen, Introgen Therapeutics, Bacterial BarCodes, Schering-Plough, Merck, Targenics, ARMO BioSciences, ACIR BioSciences, and MedImmune/AstraZeneca. John’s primary focus has been on discovery research at the interface between cancer biology and the adaptive immune response.
Rakhshita Dhar is Senior Director of Venture Investments Health at Leaps by Bayer. She joined the team in 2021 and is responsible for search & evaluation and healthcare focused investment for Leaps. She currently sits on the board of Deka Biosciences, Gro Bio, and Edifice Health.
Prior to joining Leaps, Rakhshita was Director of Business Development at Roche Pharmaceuticals where she led collaborations with Dyno Therapeutics and Rheos Biosciences. She also spent a few years at MassBio developing an accelerator program for life-science start-ups.
She got her Undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Mumbai University and her Masters in Molecular Biology from Georgetown University.
Peter Buzy has served as a member of our board of directors since December 2021. Mr. Buzy has more than 30 years of senior executive experience in the biotechnology industry where he has built a strong reputation as a dynamic leader who drives organizational excellence. Mr. Buzy brings significant expertise in both public and private company strategy, operations, production, and distribution, and is deeply familiar with the issues facing biotechnology companies.
Most recently he served as the Chairman of Catalent’s Gene Therapy division. Mr. Buzy joined Catalent as the President of the Gene Therapy via the 2019 acquisition of Paragon Bioservices, where he served as President & Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Buzy also spent over 13 years as a senior executive at publicly traded Martek Biosciences Corporation, an early leader in the innovation, development, production, and sale of high-value products from microbial sources and was instrumental in the company’s eventual sale to DSM. Mr. Buzy other experience includes 13 years at Ernst & Young, where he advanced to Partner in the Northern Virginia High Technology and Life Science Practice, serving a variety of private and publicly traded biotechnology companies. Mr. Buzy earned his BBA in accounting from Salisbury University in Maryland and serves on the Foundation Boards of both Salisbury University and University of Maryland Baltimore.
April Stanley leads diligence for life sciences investments at Echo Global, which is a venture firm focused on early-stage life science and biotech companies. She originally joined the Echo family as one of the founding employees of Wheeler Bio, an Echo-incubated portfolio company. She has 11 years’ experience at Cytovance Biologics, where she began working at the bench building E. coli strains for GMP manufacturing and later led multiple groups. She led the launch of three new services for the company, which now account for most of their annual revenue. During her time there she was the technical liaison for the sales team and interacted daily with the many VC-backed clients and potential clients who were seeking contract services. This led to an interest in the business and funding side of drug development and propelled her to return to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for an MBA. Throughout her tenure at Cytovance she worked closely with the Business Development and Corporate Strategy teams. She also has a BS Zoology from Texas A&M-College Station and a MS Microbiology from UIUC.
She has previously worked at Dow Biopharma, now Pfenex, and Charlesson, an OKC-based drug discovery company. She has also taught various undergraduate and graduate-level classes at San Diego State University, University of Central Oklahoma, and UIUC.
Scientific Advisory Board
Oncology
Oncology
Medical oncologist Abhishek Tripathi, MD, channeled his early interest in biology into a medical career with inspiration from his parents, who worked in health care. He strives to tailor treatment based on the unique details of each person’s cancer and considering their goals, values and preferences.
Dr. Tripathi joined City of Hope in 2022 after serving on the faculty of the University of Oklahoma Stephenson Cancer Center, where he had leadership roles in multiple clinical trials, including four ongoing studies that he initiated as principal investigator. In addition, he has authored numerous peer-reviewed research publications.
Prof. Aurélien Marabelle is a physician-scientist with expertise in oncology (MD) and immunology (PhD). His clinical practice is dedicated to early phase clinical trials of cancer immunotherapies within the Drug Development Department (DITEP) of Gustave Roussy Cancer Center in France. He leads a translational research laboratory (LRTI) within the INSERM unit of Prof Laurence Zitvogel with a focus on mechanisms of action of immune targeted therapies. He is also the director of the Clinical Investigation Center BIOTHERIS dedicated to intratumoral immunotherapies (INSERM CIC1428). He is a full professor of Clinical Immunology at the University of Paris Saclay. Dr Marabelle was initially trained as a scientist in the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and King’s College London and as a clinician at the Léon Bérard Cancer Center in Lyon, France where he did his clinical fellowship in pediatric hemato-oncology. He did his post-doctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Prof Ronald Levy at Stanford University, CA on strategies to overcome the resistance to immune checkpoint targeted therapies. Dr Marabelle is an active member of ESMO, ASCO, AACR, SITC, EATI and is the current president of the French Society for Cancer Immunotherapies (FITC). He has published more than 200 peer reviewed publications and has a H-index of 52.
Aung Naing, MD, FACP, is a Medical Oncologist with experience in conducting innovative clinical trials to determine dose levels, safety profiles, and preliminary efficacy of investigational agents, particularly immunotherapeutic agents. Focusing on clinical translation of basic immunobiology, Dr. Naing’s research interests include (1) identifying immunologic biomarkers to predict response/resistance/toxicity to immunotherapeutic agents, (2) developing immunotherapeutic strategies to overcome resistance, and (3) developing treatment algorithms for management of immunotoxicities. Dr. Naing has authored and co-authored manuscripts in this area and has been published in peer reviewed journals.
Dr. Frankel joins Deka as a hematologist-oncologist with over 20 years of industry experience, including the research, clinical development, and commercialization of immuno-oncology and cellular therapies. He was previously senior vice president, global drug development for cell therapy at BMS following the acquisition of Celgene to oversee the filing and development of Breyanzi® (lisocabtagene maraleucel) and Abecma® (idecabtagene vicleucel). Prior to BMS’ acquisition of Celgene, he was corporate vice president and the head of Immuno-Oncology & Cellular Therapy and Clinical Research and Development at Celgene, where he oversaw the clinical development collaborations for the Medimmune/AstraZeneca alliance for durvalumab, Celgene’s alliances with BeiGene for tislelizumab, and with Juno Therapeutics for development of cell-based therapies. Previously, he oversaw T-cell engager bispecific antibody development as vice president of clinical development at Micromet, including the development of Blincyto® (blinatumomab). He also served as Chief Medical Officer of Cytovia Therapeutics. He is a non-executive director at Precision Biosciences and a member of the board of directors at Myeloid Therapeutics. He serves on the scientific advisory board at Sutro Biopharma, Immunai, and Adagene. Dr. Frankel is also an adjunct associate professor of medicine at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University, New York. Dr. Frankel is a graduate of Harvard College and Northwestern University Medical School.
Inflammation / autoimmune
Inflammation/autoimmune
Jacques Banchereau, PhD, has studied the human immune system for more than four decades both in academic and Pharma/Biotech research centers. At the Schering-Plough/DNAX Laboratory for Immunological Research in Lyon, Dr. Banchereau focused on the discovery and characterization of numerous human cytokines and the biology of human B-cells and dendritic cells (DCs). At the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research in Dallas, which he founded, Dr. Banchereau pursued human DC biology and the therapeutic use of DCs in cancer and infectious diseases. In the field of inflammation, Dr. Banchereau contributed to studies on the role of type I interferon in systemic lupus erythematosus and IL-1 in systemic onset juvenile idiopathic arthritis, which led to the treatment of this unmet medical need. As CSO at Roche in New Jersey, Dr. Banchereau oversaw the discovery and development unit in the areas of virology and inflammation. At the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine in Connecticut, Dr. Banchereau built a human immunology research program and ran a laboratory studying autoimmune diseases, responses to vaccination and the role of alternative splicing in cancer. Most recently Jacques served as the Chief Science Officer (CSO) at Immunai (New York). During his career, Jacques authored and co-authored >500 papers with >146,000 citations (h-index of 173). Jacques completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Paris in 1980.
Khusru Asadullah is owner of a dermatological practice in Potsdam and Professor of Medicine at the University Hospital Charité in Berlin, Germany. He graduated from the Medical School Charité, Berlin and the Harvard Business School, Boston. He is a board certified Dermatologist and Immunologist. He has 17 years of industrial experience, working in management positions for Schering AG and Bayer AG, in Germany and the US. He was Vice President and Head of Global Biomarkers, Target Discovery, and Inflammation and Immunology research. Over the past years he made contributions in particular in translational medicine, cytokines, biologicals, kinases and nuclear receptors. His clinical and research focus is on inflammatory skin diseases. He published more than 160 articles in peer reviewed journals, is a member of international editorial boards and used to serve as chief editor of Advances in Precision Medicine. His current major research activities are in the fields of inflammation, cytokines, biomarkers, personalized and translational medicine.
Prof. Dr. med. Hans-Dieter Volk, MDPHD, Clinical Immunologist by training, was the head of the Institute of Medical Immunology at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and head of Department of Immunology of the Labor Berlin-Charité Vivantes GmbH until October 2021. He was founding director and spokesperson of the BIH Center of Regenerative Therapies, BCRT from 2006 – 2020. He is now senior professor of Charité. Prof. Volk´s focus is translational immunology, aiming to develop and implement new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. His research work includes in particular the development of immune biomarkers for patient stratification and monitoring, as well as developing new immunotherapeutic approaches in the fields of transplantation immunology, immunopathogenesis of virus infections in immunocompromised patients, and regenerative medicine. New cell- and gene-based therapies are of particular interest. Transdisciplinary work and closed collaboration with industry partners allowed implementation of innovative new approaches into his routine. BCRT and Institute of Medical Immunology have spawned a number of successful biotech spin-off companies, including Jerini AG, JPT GmbH, ProBioGen AG, Cellserve GmbH, Cytolon GmbH, and recently CheckImmune GmbH. Prof. Volk has been/is actively involved in several FP6/FP7/H2020 EU-funded consortia, such as RISET, One study, BioDrim, HipGen, Reshape and is coordinating PACE and the EU-wide research initiative RESTORE – Health by Advanced Therapies.
Dr. Selaru is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine and Oncology, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University. He is also a member of the Institute of Nanobiotechnology at Johns Hopkins University. Since its start in 2009, Dr. Selaru has also been directing his basic and applied science laboratory in cancer research at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Selaru’s focus is in bringing cutting edge molecular biology, genetics and engineering to the care of patients with gastroenterological disorders, in particular patients with GI cancers. His laboratory focuses on premalignant conditions such as colonic inflammation that can lead to colon cancer and inflammatory conditions of the hepatobiliary tract (such as primary sclerosing cholangitis or liver cirrhosis/fibrosis) that can lead to cholangiocarcinoma or hepatocellular cancer. The laboratory studies genetic alterations that can be utilized to understand disease progression from normal tissue to inflamed tissue to cancer, as well as to develop markers of early cancer. In addition, the laboratory focuses on epigenetic alterations, such as microRNA. Our recent studies demonstrated a rich, and previously unknown, intercellular communication between cancer cells and stroma, through small vesicles (exosomes) loaded with microRNA species. Last, the laboratory’s focus is to bring microdevices and information technology to medicine.
Dr. Selaru’s overarching goal is to deliver medical products and technologies to cancer patients, through an integrative approach that combines mathematics and data analysis, clinical gastroenterology, molecular and cell biology, engineering and business administration.
Scientific Advisory Board
Oncology
Oncology
Prof. Aurélien Marabelle is a physician-scientist with expertise in oncology (MD) and immunology (PhD). His clinical practice is dedicated to early phase clinical trials of cancer immunotherapies within the Drug Development Department (DITEP) of Gustave Roussy Cancer Center in France. He leads a translational research laboratory (LRTI) within the INSERM unit of Prof Laurence Zitvogel with a focus on mechanisms of action of immune targeted therapies. He is also the director of the Clinical Investigation Center BIOTHERIS dedicated to intratumoral immunotherapies (INSERM CIC1428). He is a full professor of Clinical Immunology at the University of Paris Saclay. Dr Marabelle was initially trained as a scientist in the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon and King’s College London and as a clinician at the Léon Bérard Cancer Center in Lyon, France where he did his clinical fellowship in pediatric hemato-oncology. He did his post-doctoral research fellowship in the laboratory of Prof Ronald Levy at Stanford University, CA on strategies to overcome the resistance to immune checkpoint targeted therapies. Dr Marabelle is an active member of ESMO, ASCO, AACR, SITC, EATI and is the current president of the French Society for Cancer Immunotherapies (FITC). He has published more than 200 peer reviewed publications and has a H-index of 52.
Aung Naing, MD, FACP, is a Medical Oncologist with experience in conducting innovative clinical trials to determine dose levels, safety profiles, and preliminary efficacy of investigational agents, particularly immunotherapeutic agents. Focusing on clinical translation of basic immunobiology, Dr. Naing’s research interests include (1) identifying immunologic biomarkers to predict response/resistance/toxicity to immunotherapeutic agents, (2) developing immunotherapeutic strategies to overcome resistance, and (3) developing treatment algorithms for management of immunotoxicities. Dr. Naing has authored and co-authored manuscripts in this area and has been published in peer reviewed journals.
Inflammation / autoimmune
Inflammation/autoimmune
Khusru Asadullah is owner of a dermatological practice in Potsdam and Professor of Medicine at the University Hospital Charité in Berlin, Germany. He graduated from the Medical School Charité, Berlin and the Harvard Business School, Boston. He is a board certified Dermatologist and Immunologist. He has 17 years of industrial experience, working in management positions for Schering AG and Bayer AG, in Germany and the US. He was Vice President and Head of Global Biomarkers, Target Discovery, and Inflammation and Immunology research. Over the past years he made contributions in particular in translational medicine, cytokines, biologicals, kinases and nuclear receptors. His clinical and research focus is on inflammatory skin diseases. He published more than 160 articles in peer reviewed journals, is a member of international editorial boards and used to serve as chief editor of Advances in Precision Medicine. His current major research activities are in the fields of inflammation, cytokines, biomarkers, personalized and translational medicine.
Prof. Dr. med. Hans-Dieter Volk, MDPHD, Clinical Immunologist by training, was the head of the Institute of Medical Immunology at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and head of Department of Immunology of the Labor Berlin-Charité Vivantes GmbH until October 2021. He was founding director and spokesperson of the BIH Center of Regenerative Therapies, BCRT from 2006 – 2020. He is now senior professor of Charité. Prof. Volk´s focus is translational immunology, aiming to develop and implement new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches. His research work includes in particular the development of immune biomarkers for patient stratification and monitoring, as well as developing new immunotherapeutic approaches in the fields of transplantation immunology, immunopathogenesis of virus infections in immunocompromised patients, and regenerative medicine. New cell- and gene-based therapies are of particular interest. Transdisciplinary work and closed collaboration with industry partners allowed implementation of innovative new approaches into his routine. BCRT and Institute of Medical Immunology have spawned a number of successful biotech spin-off companies, including Jerini AG, JPT GmbH, ProBioGen AG, Cellserve GmbH, Cytolon GmbH, and recently CheckImmune GmbH. Prof. Volk has been/is actively involved in several FP6/FP7/H2020 EU-funded consortia, such as RISET, One study, BioDrim, HipGen, Reshape and is coordinating PACE and the EU-wide research initiative RESTORE – Health by Advanced Therapies.
Dr. Selaru is currently an Associate Professor of Medicine and Oncology, Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology and Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University. He is also a member of the Institute of Nanobiotechnology at Johns Hopkins University. Since its start in 2009, Dr. Selaru has also been directing his basic and applied science laboratory in cancer research at Johns Hopkins.
Dr. Selaru’s focus is in bringing cutting edge molecular biology, genetics and engineering to the care of patients with gastroenterological disorders, in particular patients with GI cancers. His laboratory focuses on premalignant conditions such as colonic inflammation that can lead to colon cancer and inflammatory conditions of the hepatobiliary tract (such as primary sclerosing cholangitis or liver cirrhosis/fibrosis) that can lead to cholangiocarcinoma or hepatocellular cancer. The laboratory studies genetic alterations that can be utilized to understand disease progression from normal tissue to inflamed tissue to cancer, as well as to develop markers of early cancer. In addition, the laboratory focuses on epigenetic alterations, such as microRNA. Our recent studies demonstrated a rich, and previously unknown, intercellular communication between cancer cells and stroma, through small vesicles (exosomes) loaded with microRNA species. Last, the laboratory’s focus is to bring microdevices and information technology to medicine.
Dr. Selaru’s overarching goal is to deliver medical products and technologies to cancer patients, through an integrative approach that combines mathematics and data analysis, clinical gastroenterology, molecular and cell biology, engineering and business administration.
