CEOs' Insights on Where CMOs can Best Add Value for Companies in Different Stages

Dr James Ferguson is Chief Medical Officer at Matinas BioPharma.He received his undergraduate degree (cum laude) from Harvard College and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He did a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he also spent a year as a Hypertension Fellow. He did additional subspecialty Cardiology training at Beth Israel Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and then spent a year as junior faculty in the Cardiology Department at Beth Israel.Dr Ferguson then moved to the Texas Heart Institute, where he spent the next 21 years, serving as the Associate Director of Cardiology Research and Co-Director of the Cardiology Fellowship program at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital and the Texas Heart Institute, as well as Associate Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.In 2008 he left the world of academia for a position as Vice President of Medical for Surgical and Critical Care at The Medicines Company. In 2010 he moved to AstraZeneca, where he served in a variety of Development and Medical roles, with both Global and US responsibilities, and, ultimately, as Vice President for External Relations for the Cardiovascular Therapeutic Area in the US Medical Organization. In 2016 he moved to Amgen to lead the Cardiovascular TA for US Medical; his responsibilities subsequently expanded to include the broader CV and Bone Therapeutic Areas. Dr Ferguson joined Matinas BioPharma as Chief Medical Officer in February of 2019.Dr Ferguson is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, a Fellow of the American Heart Association, and has published extensively on a variety of topics in Cardiovascular Medicine.He currently resides in Somerville, New Jersey.

Stephen Kanes is a Neuropsychiatrist with a career in basic neuroscience, clinical psychiatry and neuroscience drug development spanning more than 30 years. Prior to joining EmbarkNeuro he was Chief Medical Officer of Sage Therapeutics, where he led the successful clinical development of ZULRESSO® (brexanolone), the first-ever treatment approved for Postpartum Depression (PPD), along with the buildout of the development organization and Sage Therapeutics’ broad neuroscience portfolio. Earlier in his career, Dr Kanes was Executive Director in Clinical Development in the Inflammation, Neuroscience and Respiratory therapeutic areas at AstraZeneca, and a faculty member of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry. In addition to his role at EmbarkNeuro, Dr Kanes is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Verge Genomics. Dr Kanes received both his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology and his MD from the Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine and completed his residency training in the Yale University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry.

After earning his Bachelor’s Degree from Menlo College, John received an MS from Stanford University and both a MS and PhD from MD Anderson Cancer Center where he discovered that IL-10 directly activates anti-tumor CD8+ T cells. John conducted post-doctoral work for a year at DNAX Research Institute and became a Scientist at Schering Plough where he developed PEGylated IL-10 (AM0010) as an immunoncology asset. He then founded Targenics, later merged with ARMO Biosciences (briefly a publicly traded company), to clinically develop AM0010 and other immune oncology assets. ARMO Biosciences was acquired by Eli Lilly in 2018 for a $1.6B up front deal. As a founder and Senior Director of Technical Operations at ARMO, John led the manufacturing and pre-clinical research teams.John served as the Director of Immunoncology R&D at Medimmune LLC and is the author of 28 manuscripts and 52 granted or pending patents. After reviewing the immunoncology space for two years at MedImmune and developing such diverse projects as innate and T cell agonists, CART and other cell therapy projects as well as novel immunostimulatory antibody drug conjugates, John has most recently founded Deka Biosciences. Deka is the next generation cytokine development company created to solve the challenges associated with harnessing the massive potential of cytokine therapy. With the challenges in developing T cell agonists and cell therapy programs, it is likely that cytokine combinations coupled with targeting modalities administered in conjunction with precision patient selection will be clear value drivers for the pharmaceutical industry for years to come.

Laurent is a serial biotech entrepreneur, investor, and senior executive in the pharma/biotech industry. Laurent is co-founder & CEO of PriveBio Inc. a precision medicine biotech treating cardiometabolic diseases with a pipeline of first-in-class anti-fibroinflammatory and anti-obesity therapeutics. He’s also an Executive Partner with the Biotech VC fund, Apollo Health Ventures. He has contributed to the identification and development of seven novel medicines addressing unmet medical need across multiple disease areas administered to >300,000 patients and generating >$3B in annual sales. Laurent has led business and R&D functions in both pharma and biotech (US and EU), including founding CEO of Kymera Therapeutics (NASDAQ: KYMR), founder and CEO of Parthenon Therapeutics, Head of R&D with Pierre Fabre Pharmaceuticals, and positions of increasing leadership responsibilities on the business and science & clinical fronts at Pfizer, Merck, and Pieris (NASDAQ: PIRS) contributing to the advancement of 21 drug candidates (biologics and small molecules) into clinical development across multiple disease areas and modalities. He has also completed partnering transactions worth over $3B in deal size and raised > $300M. He studied chemistry (B.S. Honors) and molecular pharmacology (PhD) at Vanderbilt University and completed postdoctoral training at UNC/Chapel Hill and Duke University where he was the recipient of a prestigious American Heart Association Fellowship. He is Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University Center for Artificial Intelligence in Drug Discovery and Development (EAI) and on Vanderbilt Board of Visitors Executive Committee. He has co-authored over 80 papers and patents. Laurent serves on Ventus’ SAB and as an independent director on the boards of Naya Biosciences and Ilya Pharma.