ABOUT SCORPION THERAPEUTICS
Dr. Axel Hoos is a distinguished physician-scientist, executive, entrepreneur and leader who was appointed as CEO of Scorpion Therapeutics in August 2021. Prior to Scorpion Therapeutics, he served as Senior Vice President, R&D Governance Chair, and Therapeutic Area Head for Oncology at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals (GSK). In that role, Dr. Hoos was responsible for technical and funding decisions and re-built the oncology business after GSK’s 2015 divestment of oncology products to Novartis, across all therapeutic modalities in the focus areas of immuno-oncology, synthetic lethality, tumor cell targeting, epigenetics, and cell & gene therapy.
Dr. Hoos is recognized as an immuno-oncology pioneer for his work on the development of the anti-CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab, the first FDA-approved checkpoint immunotherapy, and the creation of a new development paradigm for cancer immunotherapies, which launched the field of immuno-oncology.
He currently serves as a member of the Board of Trustees at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, a global health organization, Director on the Board of TCR2, a cell therapy company, and member of the Scientific Advisory Board and Co-Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium at the Cancer Research Institute. He further co-founded and served as Director on the Board at Imugene, an Australian biotech company, from 2013-2021, and was a founding member of the PACT Initiative of the Biden Cancer Moonshot.
Dr. Hoos received his M.D. in Medicine from Heidelberg University, and his Ph.D. in molecular oncology from the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ). He trained in general surgery at the Technical University of Munich and as a fellow in cancer research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and is an alumni of the Program for Leadership Development at Harvard Business School.
Andrew Fedder brings over a decade of legal experience to Scorpion Therapeutics. During the course of his career, he has advised on a wide array of complex business transactions in the pharmaceutical space, with a focus on acquisitions, divestitures and investments.
Prior to joining Scorpion Therapeutics, Mr. Fedder worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb Company in increasing roles of responsibility, most recently acting as Assistant General Counsel for Corporate and Business Development and, previously, Senior Corporate Counsel for the company’s Mergers & Acquisitions team.
Before Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Mr. Fedder held positions at international law firms Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, representing both public and private companies in the life sciences, technology and other industries in connection with mergers, acquisitions, investments, and governance and general corporate matters.
Mr. Fedder holds a J.D. from Emory University School of Law and a B.A. in economics from Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Adam Friedman is an accomplished physician, scientist and life sciences entrepreneur with extensive experience in oncology. He currently serves as President, Corporate Strategy & Business Development, which follows his former role as interim CEO of Scorpion Therapeutics.
Prior to joining the company, Dr. Friedman served as Director at Serien Therapeutics, a next-generation immuno-metabolism company, and founder of Vivid Biosciences, an oncology platform discovery company, where he served as President and Chief Executive Officer. As an entrepreneur-in-residence at Atlas Venture, he helped launch several portfolio companies exploring new areas of biology, including Raze Therapeutics, a next-generation cancer metabolism company, where he served as Founder & Director of Corporate Development. He has authored multiple peer-reviewed publications on systems biology, cell signaling, genetics and cancer biology.
Dr. Friedman received his B.A. in molecular biology from Princeton University and received both his M.D. and Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Friedman completed residency training in pediatrics at Boston Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Angel Guzman-Perez is the Head of Drug Discovery at Scorpion Therapeutics, bringing extensive medicinal chemistry, drug discovery and leadership experience.
Prior to joining Scorpion Therapeutics, Dr. Guzman-Perez held leadership roles in Amgen’s research organization, serving as Executive Director, Head of Medicinal Chemistry and was responsible for the small-molecule portfolio across therapeutic areas. Previously, Dr. Guzman-Perez spent 14 years at Pfizer, holding roles of increasing seniority in the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases Medicinal Chemistry group. Dr. Guzman-Perez has co-authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications, been a co-inventor on more than 20 patents and contributed to the advancement of more than 20 compounds to pre-clinical development.
Dr. Guzman-Perez received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University working with E. J. Corey and focusing on enantioselective organic synthesis.
Dr. Erica L. Jackson has spent the past 20 years leading teams and mentoring scientists in oncology target validation and large and small molecule drug discovery. Prior to joining Scorpion Therapeutics, Dr. Jackson was Senior Director of Oncology Discovery at AbbVie, where she led a cross-site team of biologists responsible for all biology aspects of drug discovery from target ID through candidate nomination. Before AbbVie, she spent two years at ORIC Pharmaceuticals leading the biology and in vivo pharmacology programs, helping to move ORIC-101, its glucocorticoid receptor inhibitor, into the clinic.
Dr. Jackson began her industry career at Genentech, where she spent 10 years across roles of increasing responsibility in oncology discovery. She spearheaded the use of in vivo cancer models for target discovery and devised a research strategy for studying drug-resistant tumor cell populations. During her time at Genentech, she led several large molecule project teams and was involved in small molecule drug discovery programs for several epigenetic targets. Her group’s research led to multiple high impact manuscripts on intratumoral heterogeneity and mechanisms of therapeutic resistance.
Dr. Jackson earned her Ph.D. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from Brandeis University.
Brian Piper brings more than 25 years of experience in corporate healthcare finance and has a successful track-record guiding biotechnology companies through significant organizational growth.
Prior to joining Scorpion Therapeutics, he served as Chief Financial Officer at Prelude Therapeutics, where he established the finance function and helped lead the company to a successful initial public offering in 2020. Prior to Prelude, he served as Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary at Aevi Genomic Medicine (later acquired by Cerecor, Inc.). Mr. Piper served as Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations at Medgenics, Inc. from 2014 to 2016, and prior to Medgenics, he had a 13-year career at Shire Pharmaceuticals (later acquired by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited). Mr. Piper held key roles in Investor Relations, Corporate Venture Capital, and numerous additional financial roles, including two years spent in Dublin, Ireland establishing Shire’s geographic expansion strategies.
Brian received his B.B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and an M.B.A. from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.
Kristin Schuhwerk brings over 25 years of leadership experience in pharmaceutical and biotechnology operations strategy and drug development, with particular expertise in project and portfolio management and clinical operations.
Prior to joining Scorpion Therapeutics, Ms. Schuhwerk worked at Sanofi, where she served most recently as Vice President and Global Head of Project & Portfolio Management, Development, with responsibility for overall management and delivery of the company’s development portfolio. Earlier, Ms. Schuhwerk held positions of increasing responsibility at Sanofi and gained a broad range of experience in both operations and oncology, including serving as Vice President and Global Head of Clinical Operations, where she oversaw over 300 clinical trials across more than 40 countries. She has a deep knowledge of start-up biotechnology operations, stemming from leadership and implementation roles at Moderna, Novelos Therapeutics, Antigenics, PHT Corporation and Astra Pharmaceuticals.
Previously, Ms. Schuhwerk was a Project Director at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital Thrombolysis in Myocardial Infarction (TIMI) study group, an academic research organization dedicated to advancing the knowledge and care of patients suffering from cardiovascular disease.
She holds a B.S. in chemistry from the University of New Hampshire.
Dr. Darrin Stuart has spent the last 20 years leading and mentoring teams in small molecule drug discovery in the oncology therapeutic area. Dr. Stuart is the Chief Scientific Officer at Scorpion Therapeutics.
Prior to joining Scorpion Therapeutics, Dr. Stuart was Executive Director of cancer biology and drug discovery at Novartis where he oversaw the oncology small molecule portfolio at the Cambridge, Mass. site. Over the course of 14 years at Novartis, Dr. Stuart led and oversaw 10 oncology small molecule programs into first-in-human trials. Notably, Dr. Stuart was the project leader for the encorafenib program, which is now approved to treat patients with BRAFV600mut melanoma and colorectal cancer. Dr. Stuart also led an active basic research lab, which published multiple high impact manuscripts on MAPK pathway biology and therapeutics. Dr. Stuart joined Novartis through the acquisition of Chiron where he held roles of increasing responsibility, including project and group leadership.
Dr. Stuart earned a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Alberta and holds M.Sc. and B.S. degrees in biology from the University of Waterloo.
Amanda Valentino brings two decades of experience and leadership in talent acquisition, human resources and employee experience in the pharma/biotech industry. Prior to joining Scorpion Therapeutics, Ms. Valentino served as the Chief People Officer of Ambys Medicines, where she was responsible for designing the company’s approach to hiring and retaining talent, advising the executive leadership team on people initiatives, building competitive compensation and benefits programs, overseeing diversity and inclusion initiatives and fostering an employee experience that allowed people to do their best work.
During her tenure as a senior HR leader at Genentech, Ms. Valentino was known for driving people strategy and practices that enabled consistent and strategic business growth in a highly competitive market. As the Senior Director of Talent Acquisition and Strategy at Genentech, Ms. Valentino developed novel approaches for talent discovery, recruitment, mobility and hiring. As a member of Genentech’s HR Leadership team and strategic partner to the Business Development organization, she was responsible for ensuring that HR strategy, goals, and priorities were driven by and aligned with business objectives, as well as championing cultural initiatives that fostered a differentiated employee experience. Prior to joining Genentech, Ms. Valentino served for eight years with the firm Albrecht & Associates Executive Search Consultants, conducting executive-level searches to fill management and executive positions for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies nationwide.
Ms. Valentino earned a B.A. in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. Liron Bar-Peled is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Cancer Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. His research focuses on deciphering fundamental mechanisms of stress signaling in cancer states and employing chemical proteomic platforms to discover new therapies for cancer. Liron’s lab has made key contributions to understanding how cells sense and respond to oxidative stress and developing small molecule inhibitors against difficult to drug cancer drivers.
Liron’s achievements have been widely recognized and include the AACR-MPM Transformative Award, the Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award, the Melanoma Research Foundation Young Investigator Award, the Weintraub Award and the Science-SciLifeLab Prize.
Liron earned a Ph.D in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, followed by postdoctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute.
Dr. Keith Flaherty is Director of Clinical Research at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. As described in the more than 300 peer-reviewed primary research reports he has authored or co-authored, Dr. Flaherty and colleagues made several seminal observations that have defined the treatment of melanoma when they established the efficacy of BRAF, MEK and combined BRAF/MEK inhibition in patients with metastatic melanoma in a series of New England Journal of Medicine articles for which Dr. Flaherty was the first or senior author. Dr. Flaherty also has been a leader in assessing and identifying mechanisms of de novo and acquired resistance to BRAF inhibitor therapy and clinically evaluating next generation inhibitors, work that has had implications for resistance to targeted therapy regimens used to treat other malignant diseases. He is the principal investigator of the NCI MATCH trial, the first NCI-sponsored trial assigning patients to targeted therapy independent of tumor type on the basis of DNA sequencing detection of oncogenes.
He serves Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) as chair of the Developmental Therapeutics Committee and in 2013 was appointed as ECOG Deputy Chair for Biomarker Science. Dr. Flaherty joined the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors in 2018 and AACR Board of Directors in 2019. He serves as editor-in-chief of Clinical Cancer Research. In 2013 he co-founded Loxo Oncology, served on the Board of Directors and chaired the Scientific Advisory board until its acquisition by Eli Lilly for $8 billion. He is co-founder of Strata Oncology, X4 Pharmaceuticals and Apricity.
Dr. Flaherty earned a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University, trained in internal medicines at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and completed a medical oncology fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Gaddy Getz is an internationally acclaimed leader in cancer genomics and is pioneering widely used tools for analyzing cancer genomes. Dr. Getz is an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he directs the Cancer Genome Computational Analysis Group. Dr. Getz is a Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School, and he is a faculty member and Director of Bioinformatics at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Cancer Center and Department of Pathology. He is also the inaugural incumbent of the Paul C. Zamecnik Chair in Oncology at the MGH Cancer Center.
The Getz Laboratory specializes in cancer genome analysis, which includes two major steps. The first is characterization — cataloging of all genomic events and the mechanisms that created them during the clonal evolution of cancer (starting from normal cells and progressing to premalignancy, primary cancer and emergence of resistance), and comparing events at the DNA, RNA and protein levels between tumor and normal samples from an individual patient. The second is interpretation — analysis of the characterization data across a cohort of patients with the aim of identifying the alterations in genes and pathways that drive cancer progression or increase its risk, as well as identifying molecular subtypes of the disease, their markers and relationship to clinical variables.
In addition to his roles at the MGH and the Broad Institute, Dr. Getz is the principal investigator of the Processing Genome Data Analysis Center (GDAC), as part of the NCI Genome Data Analysis Network; a co-leader of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) Pan-Cancer Analysis of Whole Genomes (PCAWG) project; and a co-principal investigator of the Broad’s Proteogenomics Data Analysis Center. Getz was a member of the NCI’s Cancer Moonshot Blue Ribbon Panel and co-led one of three NCI Cloud Pilots. He has published numerous papers in prominent journals describing new methodologies to study cancer genomes that have identified new genes and pathways involved in different tumor types, mutational signatures and tumor evolution.
Dr. Getz received his B.S. degree in physics and mathematics from Hebrew University and an M.Sc. in physics from Tel Aviv University. He later earned a Ph.D. in physics from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He completed his postdoctoral training at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard with Todd Golub, where he focused on developing computational tools and analyzing expression of miRNAs across cancer.
Dr. Gary Glick co-founded Scorpion Therapeutics. Gary started his career as a faculty member at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where he is currently the Werner E. Bachmann emeritus professor of chemistry. While at Michigan, Gary founded Lycera Corp. to develop new therapies for inflammation and cancer based on small molecules that modulate cellular metabolism. Under his direction, Lycera initiated six discovery programs, partnered three of these programs with Merck & Co. in deals collectively valued at over $600M, and advanced two programs into clinical testing.
Gary also founded FirstWave Bio and IFM Therapeutics. Under his leadership as CEO of IFM Therapeutics, the company progressed three programs from ideation to clinical development and executed three major transactions: in 2017, the company sold two cancer assets to Bristol-Myers Squibb in a deal valued over $2.3B and in 2019, he directed the sale of IFM’s NLRP3 inhibitor program to Novartis for $1.6B and led the structuring and negotiation of a collaboration and option agreement with Novartis valued at over $840M to develop inhibitors of the cGAS/STING pathway to treat serious inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. He currently serves as Executive Chairman of IFM Therapeutics.
Gary obtained a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from Columbia University and was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University. He is the author of more than 100 papers, the inventor on 33 issued U.S. patents and the recipient of numerous awards recognizing his scientific contributions and accomplishments as a life science executive.
