MATWIN International Board

Dr. Khatereh Ahmadi has worked in the biotech/pharma industry for 18 years. She  currently leads the Search and Evaluation Business Development team in Europe and Middle East at MSD and covers oncology BD&L in those territories. Previous to her role at MSD, she was a co-founder and CEO of reViral Ltd, a Phase II anti-viral company, leading a Series A round of $21M with Andera Partners and Orbimed.  She played a significant role in the spin out of Piramed Ltd, an oncology company, and subsequently became head of business development culminating in a significant deal with Genentech and acquisition of Piramed by Roche.  She has consulted for a number of EU and US companies in the oncology field. She obtained a PhD in biochemistry from King’s College London and held a post-doctoral position at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in London working in the PI 3-kinase field. Dr. Ahmadi was awarded her MBA from Henley Management College.

Cédric BARRIERE gained his PhD in Biology studying the regulation of the mammalian cell cycle developing and characterizing genetically engineered mouse models at the CNIO (Spanish National Cancer Center) in the lab of Pr. Mariano Barbacid. He then joined the group of Pr. Daniel Louvard at the Curie Institute in Paris and developed transgenic mouse models to elucidate signaling nodes involved in colorectal cancer progression. In July 2010, he joined Sanofi, as Pharmacology Lab Head in the Oncology Drug Discovery unit and supported several small molecules and biologics drug discovery programs. Since Sept 2016, he is working in the External Innovation for Oncology Department.

Jim Carmichael is currently working at Bristol Myers Squibb, in Integrative Sciences and is based in the UK.  He was an academic Oncologist who joined industry in 2002 with AstraZeneca and subsequently joined Celgene as Chief Scientific Officer for the Celgene Institute Translational Research Europe (CITRE) in July 2011.

Early Medical Oncology training was at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. He held senior positions, initially at the University of Oxford, then as the Head and Chair of the Cancer Research UK Department of Clinical Oncology at the University of Nottingham.

He joined the pharmaceutical industry in 2002 joining AstraZeneca to lead the Experimental Medicine group, based at Alderley Park, Cheshire.  In 2006 he moved to take up the role of Chief Medical Officer for KuDOS Pharmaceuticals, where the focus was the development of cancer drugs targeted at DNA repair and was responsible for the early clinical development of Olaparib.  In 2011, he moved to Celgene to take up the position of Chief Scientific Officer at CITRE, where he built the research team from scratch and was Site Head from 2011-2019. In 2015-2017 he had a secondment to San Diego where he led the Protein Homeostasis Thematic Centre of Excellence as part of Celgene R&D.  Following the Celgene acquisition in December 2019 he joined BMS as VP for Integrative Sciences, which bridges R&D with key collaborators in Industry and Academia, and is currently based in Europe.

As a Translational Research Scientist at NanoString, Sarah works on implementation and application of Immuno-oncology biomarkers using gene expression and Digital Spatial Profiling platforms. Now particularly invested in discovering immune and tumor biomarkers that can match patients with effective therapies, she has collaborated with pharmaceutical companies and academics to develop novel predictive and prognostic biomarkers, including developing a diagnostic assay to measure immunity in the tumor microenvironment.

She received her doctorate from Oregon Health and Science University in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology.

Laure de Parseval has more than 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, both in clinical development and research. She has held different medical positions at Novartis over the past 7 years, and most recently in Translational Clinical Oncology (TCO) as Clinical Site Head (Switzerland). In her previous role she was Senior Global Clinical Leader and a core member of the MEK162/LGX818 Global Project Team and during this time was instrumental in establishing the registration development program for LGX818. Prior to this she led the RAF early clinical development program in Oncology Translational Medicine. Before joining Novartis, Laure held research and medical positions in clinical development and drug discovery at Celgene and Signal Pharmaceuticals.  Laure obtained her MD from University René Descartes (Paris V, France) and completed her residency in Internal Medicine with training in hemato/oncology and infectious disease. She did her post-doctoral fellowship at UCSD (San Diego, California) on HIV pathogenesis and drug resistance.

Mary FARIS est Executive Director, External Innovation, Oncology pour GILEAD

Ken Hance has worked in the field of Cancer Immunology for 17 years and currently serves as Vice President, Research Unit Head Tumor Cell Targeting Research Unit (TCT RU) at GlaxoSmithKline. In this role, he is responsible for new target identification/validation and the delivery of critical path biology to support a growing portfolio of immune-based therapies within GSK Oncology. Within this early discovery research focus, GSK is actively collaborating with scientific organizations such as 23andMe, Immunocore and the Partnership for Accelerating Cancer Therapies (PACT), a component of the Cancer Moonshot Program. From 2016-2018, Ken held a joint appointment as a Visiting Scientist at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, PA. Prior to joining GSK, Ken worked in the biopharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA where he contributed to the development of the approved anti-PD-L1 antibody (Bavencio (Avelumab)) and the clinical stage anti-PD-L1/TGF-βRII bispecific antibody (Bintrafusp-alfa (M7824)). Ken received his postdoctoral training in the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology and Biology at the National Cancer Institute, a PhD from Purdue University and MPH from George Washington University.

Anna KRUCZYNSKI obtained her PhD in cellular pharmacology at Paul Sabatier University Toulouse in 1991. Then she completed her training at the National Veterinary School in Toulouse and Lyon. She started her professional carreer for Pierre Fabre in 1991 with various positions being involved in different Drug Discovery Programmes, that led to the identification and selection of four novel anticancer agents and in the setting up of a new innovative group of Experimental Oncology (Oncopôle – Toulouse). In 2016, Anna Kruczynski was appointed Director, External Innovation in Oncology for Pierre Fabre, in charge of the identification and critical analysis of external opportunities to license into Pierre Fabre pipeline.

Dr Valérie MÉRESSE NAEGELEN is Global Senior Oncology Clinical Leader, Oncology Insight, Pharma research and Early Development (pRED) at Hoffmann La Roche

Dr Méresse Naegelen has over 20 years of experience in translational research and late and early clinical development of small and large molecule compounds for various indications in oncology-hematology. She is seasoned physician scientist who joined Roche in 2002 and currently oversees all translational and clinical activities related to the in-licensing and acquisition of external assets for Roche, pRED Oncology in Basel. Under her leadership, multiple programs have entered and progressed through clinical development, some accompanied by extensive translational activities and biomarker development. Her expertise covers various stages of assets development across multiple modalities in the field of oncology-haematology.

Dr. Mark Pearson received his BA from the University of Oxford and completed his doctoral studies at the University of Manchester in 1996. Subsequently, he worked on the role of the PML-RARa fusion oncogene in regulation of p53 at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan with Professor Pelicci.

After leaving academia, Dr Pearson joined Novartis as a laboratory head from 2001 until 2007 and returned to England to work at Astra Zeneca as an Associate Principal Scientist. Since 2010, Dr Pearson has worked within the Oncology Therapeutic Area at the Boehringer Ingelheim Vienna site, first as a Group Leader and then subsequently as a Department Head in the Cancer Cell Signalling and, as of the beginning of April 2022, in the Cancer Pharmacology and Disease Positioning Departments.

Dr. Rankin is an Executive Director in Oncology at Amgen Inc leading the Immuno-Oncology research team. In this role, he is responsible for securing strategic alignment across functions to prioritize areas of focus as well as identifying new targets and combination therapies, providing critical biological validation data packages and advancing programs through IND-enabling development. He previously served as Vice President of Research (Immuno-Oncology) at FivePrime Therapeutics from October 2019 until the acquisition of FivePrime Therapeutics by Amgen in April 2021.  He held positions of increasing responsibility at FivePrime from October 2012 to September 2019, which included discovery and advancement of novel Immuno-Oncology targets and leading a multi-target discovery collaboration with Bristol Myers Squibb. Dr. Rankin joined FivePrime in 2012 from Pfizer where he led the Discovery B and T cell Targeting Group, which was focused on identifying novel therapeutic targets and modalities for the treatment of autoimmunity and inflammation.  Dr. Rankin received his Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine with a focus on understanding factors regulating T and B cell responses to both foreign and self-antigens.  He performed his post-doctoral studies at DNAX/Schering-Plough in the Discovery Cytokine Biology Group.

Anette Sommer is a biochemist by training and has more than 20 years of experience in Pharma R&D. Anette is the Emerging Science & Innovation – Lead Oncology Europe at Pfizer. Prior to joining Pfizer, Anette held several positions in drug discovery at Schering AG and Bayer AG, Berlin, Germany. During her career, she moved several drug candidates for oncology into development and was involved in in-licensing, out-licensing and managing external academic alliances and consortia. Her academic career included a PostDoc at the pharmaceutical company Schering AG in Berlin, Germany. She obtained her PhD at the Medical School Hannover. Prior to this, she studied biochemistry at the Universities of Hannover (Germany) and Glasgow (UK). Anette is author of >50 scientific publications and >10 patent applications.

Viia VALGE-ARCHER is Senior Director, External R&D Scientific and Clinical Alliances at AstraZeneca.  Her research interests are in tumour immunology, particularly identification of barriers to development of an effective anti-tumour immune response, and the discovery and development of novel therapeutic approaches.  Viia received her PhD from MIT, where her interest in immunology was sparked studying T cell receptor signalling with Anjana Rao at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.  Following postdoc research on leukaemia oncogenes in the laboratory of Dr. Terry Rabbitts at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, she joined Cambridge Antibody Technology and has over 20 years of experience in large and small molecule pharmaceutical R&D.  Viia joined AstraZeneca from MedImmune in 2016, where her current role has responsibility for initiating and supporting multiple facets of AZ engagement with the external scientific community, including collaborations, consortia and advisory panels.