Immuno-Oncology Debate on Solving Cancer’s Top Challenges

Charles (Chuck) Drake, MD, PhD, is Vice President, Immuno-oncology (I-O) at Janssen Research & Development, LLC. In this position, he is responsible for leading the I-O team to further enhance the scientific strategy required to deliver the portfolio of I-O and cell-based oncology therapeutics, as well as building a robust pipeline of next-generation compounds. Dr Drake is a physician-scientist whose research and clinical activities have focused on understanding the biology of immune cells in the tumor microenvironment and translating those findings into cutting-edge clinical trials in the study of patients with prostate, kidney and bladder cancer. Prior to joining Janssen Research & Development, Dr Drake led the genitourinary oncology program at the Herbert Irving Cancer Center, Columbia University Medical Center, New York Presbyterian Hospital. He was also named the Milstein Family Professor of Medicine and Urology and served as the Associate Director for Clinical Research at the Cancer Center. Dr Drake founded Columbia’s Human Immune Monitoring Core, which provides state-of-the-art analytic technologies for the study of human cancer. At Columbia University, he and his colleagues built a strong portfolio of more than 30 immunotherapy trials, including a number of first-in-human studies in patients with prostate genitourinary cancers, many based on his laboratory research. Previously, he served as the Co-director of the Cancer Immunology Program at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Dr Drake received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Rutgers University. He earned his medical degree from the University of Colorado Medical Science Training Program and received his doctorate in Immunology from the National Jewish Research Center. He completed his residency through the Osler Medical Residency Training Program at Johns Hopkins and finished his fellowship in Medical Oncology at Johns Hopkins as well. Dr Drake is board-certified in medical oncology.

Kristen Hege, MD, is currently an Independent Board Member at Adaptimmune, Mersana & Graphite Bio. Her most recent role was SVP, Early Clinical Development, Hematology/Oncology & Cell Therapy following the acquisition of Celgene in 2019. Previously, she spent 10 years at Celgene building the Early Clinical Development organization where her team advanced a pipeline of small molecules, biologics and T cell therapies. She has led the bluebird- partnered BCMA CART cell program (ide-cel; formerly bb2121) in multiple myeloma from first in man through registrational studies. Prior to joining Celgene she held multiple executive roles at biotech companies, including Cell Genesys, Cellerant and Theraclone. In addition to her work at BMS, Dr Hege is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) where she continues to see patients with blood cancers weekly. Dr Hege also serves on the Board of Directors of Mersana Therapeutics and was elected to the Board of Directors for the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) for a 3-year term from 2016-2019. Dr Hege received her MD from UCSF and internal medicine and hematology/oncology subspecialty training at Harvard and UCSF, respectively. In 2015, Dr Hege was recognized by Fierce Biotech as one of the top 12 women in Biopharma and in 2019 she was the first Celgene recipient of the Healthcare Business Women’s Association Luminary award. Her career path and long history with CAR T cell development was featured in the “Turning Points” series as one of 25 physicians and scientists recognized as part of the 25th anniversary celebration of Nature Medicine.

Axel Hoos, MD, PhD, was most recently the CEO of Scorpion Therapeutics. Prior to this, Dr Hoos was Senior Vice President and Therapeutic Area Head, Oncology R&D at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK).As leader of the Oncology TA he oversaw both its discovery and development functions and built the Oncology portfolio of GSK across several modalities including antibodies, small molecules, bispecific molecules and cell & gene therapies. The TA’s scientific focus is on Immuno-Oncology, Epigenetics and Cell Therapy. Dr Hoos also served on the Scientific Advisory Board of the HIV Cure Center, a co-venture of GSK and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.Dr Hoos further serves as Executive Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sabin Vaccine Institute (SVI), a Global Health organization, Non-executive Director on the Board of Imugene, a biotech company, Co-Chairman of the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium (CIC) and Scientific Advisory Board Member of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI). He further is a Scientific Advisory Group member at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), and Industry Co-Chair of the Partnership for Acceleration Cancer Therapies (PACT) of the US Cancer Moonshot.His efforts in Medicines Development and Global Health focus on novel and transformational therapies for life-threatening diseases, scientific and procedural innovation, and broad collaboration across multiple constituents to solve complex health problems. Through his leadership, a new paradigm for the development of cancer immunotherapies has been defined, which helped launch the field of Immuno-Oncology.Previously, Dr Hoos was the Global Medical Lead in Immunology/Oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) where he developed Yervoy (Ipilimumab), the first life-extending therapy in Immuno-Oncology. Before BMS, Dr Hoos was Senior Director of Clinical Development at Agenus Bio (previously Antigenics), a biotech company.Dr Hoos holds an MD from Ruprecht-Karls-University and a PhD in molecular oncology from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) both in Heidelberg, Germany. He trained in surgery at the Technical University in Munich, Germany and further in surgery, molecular pathology and tumor immunology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He is an alumnus of the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.

Michael Kalos, PhD, is an internationally recognized expert in T cell therapy and immunotherapy, and brings over 25 years of experience and expertise in cell therapy, oncology vaccines, and immuno-oncology.Most recently Dr Kalos served as Executive Vice President and Head of R&D at ArsenalBio, a synthetic biology-based cell therapy start-up. At ArsenalBio Dr Kalos played a key role to develop the corporate R&D strategy, and had direct remit to establish the product development organization and the strategy for the company’s first product. Prior to ArsenalBio, Dr Kalos served as Vice President of Immuno-oncology and Oncology Cell Therapies at Janssen, the pharmaceutical companies of Johnson and Johnson, where he led corporate internal and external strategy and efforts in cell therapy, neoantigen vaccines and immuno-oncology. Prior to Janssen, Dr Kalos served as Chief Scientific Officer of immuno-oncology at Eli Lilly and Company, where he established and led internal and external corporate strategy in immuno-oncology, including biologics, bi-specifics, vaccines and cell therapy. Prior to joining the biopharmaceutical sector, Dr Kalos spent 10 years in academia, where he focused on the development of integrated translational biomarker programs to support the development of cell therapy and immunotherapy programs. The laboratory he founded and directed at the University of Pennsylvania played a key role in the success of the cell therapy program at Penn, including clinical development of the CTL019 program that was licensed to Novartis and led to the approval of Kymriah.Dr Kalos obtained his PhD from the University of Minnesota, and completed post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Phil Greenberg at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.Dr Kalos has co-authored over 85 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including multiple highly cited articles in high-impact journals that have helped define the space of CAR- and TCR- based T cell therapy, as well as book chapters in the field of cancer immunotherapy, and has 26 issued patents in the field of cell therapy, immunotherapy and vaccines. He actively serves and has served as an advisory member for biopharmaceutical companies, as well as international immunotherapy consortia and societies.

Naiyer Rizvi, MD, has served as Synthekine’s Chief Medical Officer since May of 2021. He is an internationally recognized leader in cancer immunotherapy drug development whose clinical research has helped deliver FDA approvals of several landmark immunotherapies, including nivolumab in squamous lung cancer and pembrolizumab in non-small cell lung cancer. As a medical oncologist and expert in clinical immuno-oncology, Dr Rizvi’s research into mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to immunotherapy has laid the foundation to the understanding of clinical responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors. He conducted clinical studies of novel immunotherapy drugs and immunotherapy combinations, including the landmark study to demonstrate a correlation between mutations and neoantigens with durable benefit to immune-checkpoint blockade. His work has been published in leading journals including Science, Nature and the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr Rizvi most recently served as the Price Family Professor of Medicine, Director of Thoracic Oncology and Co-Director of Cancer Immunotherapy at Columbia University Medical Center. In addition, he was recently Research Director of the Price Family Comprehensive Center for Chest Care at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr Rizvi received his MD from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine and completed his residency training at the University of Manitoba Affiliated Hospital and fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. He is a co-founder of Gritstone bio (previously known as Gritstone Oncology) and serves on its board of directors and scientific advisory board.

Dr Alex Snyder is the Head of Research and Development at Generate Biomedicines, a biotechnology company that uses artificial intelligence, machine learning and protein engineering to create novel medicines. Prior to joining Generate in 2022, Dr. Snyder was a Principal at the biotech incubator Two River, following her role as Associate Vice President and Head of Translational Oncology at Merck. She previously was Translational Medicine Lead at Adaptive Biotechnologies, and started her career as faculty and federally-funded Principal Investigator at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Snyder is a Cancer Steering Committee (CSC) Biomedical Co-Chair for the Executive Committee and co-leads the SITC Biomarker Working Group. She is a Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at NYU and Bellevue Hospitals, Section Editor for the Journal for the Immunotherapy of Cancer, and was a member of the board of Navigating Cancer. Dr. Snyder received her medical degree and internal medicine training at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Hospital, followed by medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC).

William Ho is our co-founder and CEO has worked in the biotech industry for over 22 years. Previously he founded AlephPoint Capital, a private healthcare investment fund and launched the public and cross-over portfolio at New Leaf Venture Partners, a leading healthcare venture capital firm. He has held numerous roles across company operations and Wall Street over his career. Mr Ho received his MBA from the University of Notre Dame and a BS in Biochemistry from McMaster University.