MATWIN International Board

Rick BAEHNER is the Chief Medical Officer for Exact Sciences Precision Oncology Business. With over 20 years of leadership experience in diagnostic  development, he has helped develop several oncology-related products such as the Oncotype DX Recurrence Score, quantitative single gene reporting, the DCIS Score, Oncotype DX for colon carcinoma, the prostate GPS Score, Liquid Select – a 17 gene NGS liquid biopsy assay, OncoExTra a whole exome, transcriptome, with germ line subtraction NGS tissue assay, and OncoDetect a tumor informed molecular residual disease (MRD) assay.

Apart from his role at Exact Sciences, Rick is a professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is an expert in cytology, breast, and molecular pathology and directed the Hellen Diller Molecular & Immunohistochemistry Core Laboratory for over a decade.

Rick is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology (USCAP), and the College of American Pathologists (CAP), and has served on the CAP Immunohistochemistry and Technology Assessment Committees.

Rick holds a Medical Doctorate from the University of Kansas, School of Medicine, and a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from the same university. He completed his training at the University of California, San Francisco, and is boarded in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology. He has also completed Fellowship training programs in Surgical Pathology, Hematopathology, and Cytology.

Claire BLOOMFIELD is Senior Director, International Corporate Development at Insitro. Claire is part of the Corporate Development and Strategy team at insitro, where she leads International Corporate Development, focussed on supporting novel collaborative data partnerships.

Prior to this, she was based at the NHS England Centre for Improving Data Collaboration as the Deputy Director and SRO for the Data for R&D Programme. She oversaw development and delivery of NHS and Government investments in health data for R&D, to support the ambitions of the Life Sciences Vision and Vision for the Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery.

Before joining CIDC Claire was the CEO of the world-leading UK National Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligent in Medical Imaging (NCIMI), at the University of Oxford. NCIMI is a launchpad to improve the healthcare industry through the use of AI, and is supported through a combination of Innovate UK and industry support totalling over £25m. The consortium is led from the University but spans activity across the UK and involves partnerships with 14 hospitals, clinical leaders, 13 industry partners in the fields of AI and medical imaging, world-leading academic researchers in AI, imaging, data science and ethics, plus patient groups and charities.

Claire’s academic research during her DPhil and post-docs focused on neuroscience, with an interest in neuropsychiatric conditions and the neural networks involved in executive function. She held research fellowships at the University of Oxford and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Following her academic research career and before becoming the CEO of NCIMI, she returned to Oxford as the Head of Strategy and Innovation for Cancer Research UK Oxford Centre. This role placed her at the nexus of cancer activity within the university community and the UK overall, affording unique opportunities to work on cross-departmental and pan-divisional projects.

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.

Christian Fischer is currently a Distinguished Scientist (Scientific Executive Director) in Discovery Chemistry at MSD in Boston (USA).  Christian joined MSD 19 years ago as a Medicinal Chemist after completing his PhD in Synthetic Organic Chemistry at the ETH in Zurich and a postdoctoral appointment at MIT.  His industrial career began with research focused on Neuroscience & Immunology.  In the past 10+ years his focus has been Oncology drug development where he has been leading teams from early discovery to bringing molecules to the clinic. Since 2016 Christian is partnering with MSD’s BD&L organization across modalities and interacts with >100 companies a year.   In his current role he is a member of the global extended chemistry leadership team, holds responsibility for small molecule oncology pipeline programs and continues to support MSD’s BD&L organization in Oncology S&E. Christian has authored >50 peer-reviewed scientific publications and patent applications.

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.

Sasha HUHALOV is Head Oncology Search & Evaluation, Center for External Innovation at TAKEDA. Sasha has over 16 years of industry experience in both biotech and pharma driving innovation and development of cancer therapeutics. She is currently Executive Director, Head, Search and Evaluation for Oncology, Cell Therapy, and Global Biologics at Takeda within the Center for External Innovation. Prior to joining Takeda, Sasha was Head of Portfolio Assessment at Tesaro (acquired by GSK), a team which focused on interpreting the in-line strategy and external oncology landscape to identify risks and opportunities impacting the internal research, development, and global commercial strategy. Her team actively contributed to the strategies leading to approval of two oncology programs, ZEJULA and JEMPERLI, as well as a number of programs currently in late-stage clinical development. Before joining Tesaro, Sasha worked in various R&D roles at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals. Sasha completed her PhD and post-doctoral work at University College London, focusing on antibody engineering of novel cancer therapeutics.

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. 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.

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.