Scott Peterson is the Chief Business Officer of T-Cypher Bio, an Oxford-based biotech building next-generation TCR therapeutics for solid tumors and autoimmune disease. A Harvard-trained PhD who started his career at the lab bench as a medicinal chemist at Merck, he crossed over to the deal side and spent two decades shaping pipelines and partnerships at Intarcia, Spero, and Dewpoint Therapeutics before taking the commercial helm at T-Cypher. He is the rare dealmaker who can read both a term sheet and a reaction mechanism.
Nurix Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in San Francisco pioneering targeted protein degradation - medicines that destroy disease-causing proteins rather than merely blocking them. Built on its DELigase discovery engine that harnesses the cell's ubiquitin-proteasome system and DNA-encoded library screening, Nurix is advancing a pipeline of degraders and degrader antibody conjugates for cancer and autoimmune disease, led by the BTK degrader bexobrutideg (NX-5948). The company is partnered with Roche, Sanofi, Gilead, and Pfizer (via Seagen) and trades on Nasdaq under NRIX.
Michael Shih is the Chief Executive Officer of NeoPhore Ltd, a London-based small molecule neoantigen immuno-oncology company developing first-in-class drugs that target the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) pathway to make cancers more visible to the immune system. An attorney by training with degrees in biology, he spent nearly two decades structuring biotech deals before sitting in the chief executive's chair, with senior business development and corporate development roles at Kite Pharma, Biogen, Sanofi, Epizyme, Forest Laboratories, Kastle Therapeutics and Eisai. He took the helm at NeoPhore in December 2024, right after the company closed an oversubscribed Series B round backed by Bristol Myers Squibb.
Arsenal Biosciences (ArsenalBio) is a clinical-stage, programmable cell therapy company in South San Francisco engineering CAR-T cell therapies for solid tumors. By combining CRISPR genome engineering, synthetic biology, high-throughput target discovery and machine learning, it builds 'integrated circuit T cells' that carry logic gates and multiple drug functions to attack tumors while sparing healthy tissue. Founded in 2019 by surgeon-executive Ken Drazan with leading academic immunologists, the company has raised roughly $850M total, including an oversubscribed $325M Series C in 2024 backed by ARCH, NVIDIA's NVentures, Regeneron Ventures and Bristol Myers Squibb.
AvenCell Therapeutics is a clinical-stage cell therapy company building switchable, universal CAR-T treatments that can be turned 'off' and 'on' even after they are inside a patient. By pairing this controllable switch with a CRISPR-engineered, off-the-shelf allogeneic platform, AvenCell aims to widen the narrow safety window of conventional CAR-T while cutting the cost and wait time of manufacturing, targeting hard-to-treat blood cancers like AML, B-cell malignancies and, increasingly, autoimmune disease.
Bonum Therapeutics is a Seattle biotechnology company building conditionally active biologics - drugs that switch on only where they are needed and switch off everywhere else. Spun out of Good Therapeutics after Roche's $250M acquisition in 2022, Bonum kept the platform blueprint and its founding team, then raised a $93M Series A to extend the approach. Its patented dual-binding antibody (DBA) technology uses a single domain that binds either an effector cytokine or a marker protein, but only one at a time, creating fully reversible medicines aimed at cancer, autoimmunity, metabolic disease and pain.
Clasp Therapeutics is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company building off-the-shelf, antibody-like T cell engagers that target cancer driver mutations presented on tumor cells via HLA. Spun out of Johns Hopkins and co-founded by cancer-genetics pioneer Bert Vogelstein and immunotherapy leader Drew Pardoll, Clasp uses its proprietary pHLAre platform to redirect a patient's own T cells to kill tumors with what the company calls absolute specificity - hitting mutant peptides found only on cancer cells while sparing healthy tissue. The company launched publicly in March 2024 with a $150 million Series A and dosed its first patient in April 2025.
克睿基因 Cure Genetics is a clinical-stage biotech founded in Suzhou in 2016 that develops cell and gene therapies for solid tumors and genetic diseases. It runs two proprietary platforms: AIMS, an allogeneic CAR-NKT cell therapy approach aimed at hard-to-treat solid tumors, and VELP, a directed-evolution AAV vector platform that builds high-quality viral libraries for tissue-targeted gene delivery to the nervous system, heart, and kidney. Its lead programs include CGC729 (anti-CD70 CAR-NKT for renal cell carcinoma) and CGC-602 (a PD-1-IL-2v bispecific antibody).
HanchorBio is a clinical-stage biotechnology company building next-generation cancer and autoimmune therapies on its proprietary Fc-Based Designer Biologics (FBDB) platform. Founded in 2020 by Henlius co-founder Scott Liu, the company engineers multi-target Fc fusion proteins designed to reach tumors that resist conventional PD-1/PD-L1 checkpoint drugs. Its lead candidate, HCB101, is an affinity-optimized SIRPalpha-Fc fusion protein targeting the CD47-SIRPalpha 'don't eat me' pathway, engineered to spare red blood cells and avoid the anemia that sank earlier anti-CD47 programs. With operations spanning Taipei, Shanghai, and the San Francisco Bay Area, HanchorBio is advancing a pipeline across solid and hematologic cancers and autoimmune disease.
HebeCell Corp is a Natick, Massachusetts biotech developing allogeneic, off-the-shelf cell therapies grown from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Its core invention is a suspension-bioreactor platform, ProtoNK, that produces natural killer (NK) cells indefinitely and at scale - a manufacturing approach the company says no other lab can match. Founded in 2016, HebeCell aims to make cancer and degenerative-disease therapies cheaper, safer, and available without a matched donor, under the tagline 'Incurable no more.'
Immetas Therapeutics is a New Jersey biotech building drugs that target the chronic, low-grade inflammation that drives aging and age-related disease - what scientists call 'inflammaging.' Founded in 2018 by drug-development veteran J. Gene Wang and Harvard aging researcher David Sinclair, the company designs bispecific antibodies and other biologics to reprogram the innate immune system, aiming to treat age-related cancers and inflammatory and autoimmune disease. It raised an $11M Series A from Morningside Ventures in 2020 and partners with GC Biopharma on mRNA therapeutics.
Alvin Luk is a biotech executive, neuroscientist and entrepreneur with more than three decades in global drug development. He is President & Chief Medical Officer (Group) and U.S. CEO of HanchorBio, a clinical-stage immunology and immuno-oncology company building Fc-based designer biologics, and co-founder and CEO of CRISPR gene-editing company HuidaGene Therapeutics. Across his career he has contributed to roughly two dozen approved products and more than 250 global regulatory submissions, including LUXTURNA, the first FDA-approved gene therapy. A 2025 TIME100 Health honoree, he wants to turn HanchorBio into the 'Genentech of Asia.'
Andrew Schiermeier is the President and CEO of AvenCell Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotech in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Dresden, Germany building switchable, universal CAR-T cell therapies for hard-to-treat cancers like acute myeloid leukemia. An engineer-turned-operator with a Harvard PhD in applied mathematics, he spent two decades across startups and global pharma - five years at CRISPR pioneer Intellia Therapeutics rising to COO, and a stint running Merck KGaA's oncology business across 60-plus countries - before taking AvenCell's helm in 2021 and leading its $112 million Series B in 2024.
Marengo Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts clinical-stage biotech reprogramming the immune system from the inside out. Instead of releasing the brakes on T cells the way checkpoint inhibitors do, Marengo's STAR (Selective T Cell Activation Repertoire) platform builds antibody-fusion molecules that target variable regions of the T cell receptor (Vβ) to selectively wake up the specific subsets of T cells that can attack tumors - and remember them. Launched in 2021 with $80M from Apple Tree Partners, its lead drug invikafusp alfa (STAR0602) is in Phase 1/2 trials, has earned FDA Fast Track designation, and is being studied across cancers that no longer respond to PD-1 therapy.
MaveriX Oncology is a Palo Alto biotech developing conditionally activated small molecule drug conjugates (CA-SMDCs) that exploit tumor-associated hydroxylase biology to deliver cytotoxic and immunomodulatory payloads selectively to solid tumors. Its IMPACT-2X platform aims to widen the therapeutic window of chemotherapy and immunotherapy, killing cancer cells while turning 'cold' immunosuppressive tumors 'hot.' Founded by veteran oncology drug developers and backed by PPF Group and SOTIO, the company's lead program is MVX-5005.
NeoPhore is a UK small-molecule immuno-oncology company developing first-in-class inhibitors of the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) pathway. By temporarily switching off MMR, its drugs are designed to make tumours generate fresh neoantigens, become visible to the immune system, and respond to checkpoint immunotherapy - extending the benefit of drugs like Keytruda to patients whose cancers are otherwise immune-cold. A 2017 spin-out of Cambridge's PhoreMost, NeoPhore has raised roughly $47M and counts Bristol Myers Squibb and Memorial Sloan Kettering among its backers and collaborators.
Noetik is an AI-native biotechnology company building foundation models of human cancer biology to discover precision immunotherapies. It pairs one of the world's largest proprietary spatial-omics datasets - hundreds of millions of spatially resolved tumor and immune cells - with a high-throughput in vivo CRISPR Perturb-Map platform to train multimodal virtual cell models like OCTO-VC. These models simulate gene expression, cell states, and tumor-immune interactions, letting researchers find drug targets and predict patient response computationally. Founded in 2022 by former Recursion leaders Ron Alfa and Jacob Rinaldi, Noetik has raised roughly $62M and licenses its models to pharma, including an anchor partnership with GSK.
Outpace Bio is a Seattle biotech using AI-powered de novo protein design to program immune cells - especially CAR T cells - that can recognize and destroy solid tumors while limiting harmful side effects. Spun out of Lyell Immunopharma in 2021 by Institute for Protein Design alumni, the company has raised roughly $199M and is advancing its lead candidate, OPB-101, a mesothelin-targeted CAR T therapy for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, toward the clinic.
Seneca Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted oncolytic immunotherapeutics built on SVV-001, a non-pathogenic Seneca Valley Virus that selectively replicates in solid-tumor cells expressing the TEM8/ANTXR1 receptor. Founded by oncolytic-virus pioneer Dr. Paul Hallenbeck, the company pairs SVV-001 with immune modulators and checkpoint inhibitors to spark systemic anti-tumor immunity, and is advancing a Phase I/II trial in high-grade neuroendocrine neoplasms while building a pipeline of armed and neo-antigen viral constructs.
Solu Therapeutics is a Boston-based clinical-stage biotech building a new class of medicines that selectively kill disease-driving cells. Its proprietary CyTAC (Cytotoxicity Targeting Chimera) and TicTAC (Therapeutic Index Control Targeting Chimera) platforms fuse the precise binding of small molecules with the cell-killing power of antibodies, reaching cell-surface targets - like GPCRs and ion channels - that traditional antibodies cannot. Its lead program, STX-0712, is a CCR2-targeting candidate in a Phase 1 trial for chronic myelomonocytic leukemia and other advanced blood cancers.
J. Gene Wang is a physician-scientist and the founder and CEO of Immetas Therapeutics, a biotech he co-founded in 2018 with Harvard's David Sinclair to attack the chronic, low-grade inflammation that drives aging and age-related cancers. Trained with an M.D. from Peking University and a Ph.D. in immunobiology from Yale, Wang spent roughly two decades inside Merck, Abbott, GSK, and Novartis, where he helped move blockbuster drugs like Humira, Gardasil, Zolinza, and Varubi from lab bench to patients. At Immetas he is engineering bispecific antibodies designed to retune inflammation inside the tumor microenvironment and break resistance to checkpoint immunotherapy, backed by an $11M Series A from Morningside Ventures.
SURGE Therapeutics is a Cambridge, Massachusetts clinical-stage biotech building intraoperative immunotherapy: a biodegradable, injectable hydrogel (SURGERx) placed directly into the surgical wound at the moment a tumor is removed. The goal is to turn the body's post-surgical inflammation from immunosuppressive to immunostimulatory and stop residual cancer cells from seeding recurrence and metastasis. Founded on research from Harvard Medical School and led by founder-CEO Michael Goldberg, Ph.D., the company has raised about $58M and is advancing its lead candidate SRG-514 toward a registrational trial in triple-negative breast cancer.
Shi-Jiang (John) Lu is a stem cell scientist and the founder, President and CEO of HebeCell Corp, a Natick, Massachusetts biotech building off-the-shelf cancer-killing immune cells from pluripotent stem cells. He spent two decades in regenerative medicine, was a top-ranked inventor in the global stem cell patent landscape, and led research at Advanced Cell Technology before that company was absorbed by Astellas. At HebeCell he pioneered a 3D, feeder-free bioreactor process for growing iPSC-derived natural killer (NK) and CAR-NK cells at industrial scale - aiming to make potent immune therapies as standardized and reproducible as a manufactured product.
John Mulligan is the founder and CEO of Bonum Therapeutics, a Seattle biotech building antibody-regulated biologics that switch on only at their target. A serial entrepreneur with roughly 30 years across drug discovery and company formation, he has founded four companies in fields he often entered as a novice - including Good Therapeutics, whose PD-1-regulated IL-2 program Roche acquired in 2022 for $250M upfront. Bonum spun out of that deal with $93M in Series A funding to apply the same conditional-activation science across oncology, autoimmunity, metabolic disease, and pain. Mulligan holds a BS in biology from MIT and a PhD from Stanford, and was named a Top Industry Leader by the PharmaVoice 100 in 2023.
Ken Drazan is the Chairman, CEO and co-founder of Arsenal Biosciences (ArsenalBio), a South San Francisco clinical-stage company building computationally designed, programmable T-cell therapies to attack solid tumors. A board-certified liver transplant surgeon turned operator and investor, he previously was President and Chief Business Officer of GRAIL (acquired by Illumina), founded the robotic surgery company Verb Surgical (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), and co-founded the private equity firm Bertram Capital. At ArsenalBio he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and forged collaborations with Bristol Myers Squibb and Genentech, betting that gene-edited 'integrated circuit' T cells - and an AI foundation model of the T cell - can turn cell therapy into something curative for cancers that have resisted it.
Kumar Srinivasan is the President and CEO of Wugen, a St. Louis clinical-stage biotech building off-the-shelf memory NK and CAR-T cell therapies for cancer. A chemist turned dealmaker, he spent 25+ years in pharma and biotech business development, most notably engineering the partnering strategy at Turning Point Therapeutics that culminated in its $4.1 billion acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb. Since taking Wugen's helm in March 2023, he has steered its lead programs WU-CART-007 and WU-NK-101 into pivotal and early clinical trials.
Marc Lajoie is a protein designer turned biotech CEO. He co-founded Outpace Bio in 2021 in Seattle, where he is chief executive, building engineered cell therapies that aim to bring the kind of cures seen in blood cancers to the solid tumors that make up the vast majority of cancer cases. Trained in George Church's genome-engineering lab at Harvard and David Baker's Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, Lajoie helped pioneer the design of proteins with moving parts - molecules that compute, switch, and make decisions inside living cells. Outpace raised a $144M oversubscribed Series B in 2024 to push its AI-powered, protein-designed therapies toward the clinic.
Michael Boretti is the Chief Business Officer of Solu Therapeutics, a Boston biotech building a new class of cell-killing medicines on its CyTaC (Cytotoxicity Targeting Chimera) platform licensed from GSK. A bioengineer-turned-dealmaker with roughly two decades in biopharma, Boretti leads business development, strategic financing and alliance management. His earlier stops include CBO of Celsius Therapeutics, VP of Business Development at Epizyme, and VP of Corporate Development and Alliance Management at AVEO Oncology, where he helped shape partnerships with Astellas, Novartis and Janssen. He holds a B.S. in engineering science from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
Michael Goldberg is the founder and CEO of SURGE Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech pioneering intraoperative immunotherapy. His idea is deceptively simple: when a surgeon removes a solid tumor, don't leave the cavity empty - fill it with an injectable, biodegradable hydrogel that releases immune-activating medicine right where cancer is most likely to return. A trained chemist who earned a PhD at MIT under Robert Langer and did postdoctoral work with Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp, Goldberg became a Harvard Medical School professor before leaving academia to translate his lab's discovery into the clinic. SURGE has raised roughly $58M, cleared an FDA IND, and completed Phase 1 dosing of its lead program ahead of a registrational trial in triple-negative breast cancer.
Aleta Biotherapeutics is a Natick, Massachusetts immuno-oncology company building CAR T Engagers (CTEs) - simple biologic proteins that make existing CAR-T cell therapies work better. Its lead drug, ALETA-001, bridges a patient's CD19-targeted CAR T-cells to CD20 on cancer cells, aiming to rescue patients who relapse after standard CAR-T treatment for B-cell cancers. Founded in 2015 by Paul Rennert and Roy Lobb, the company is running a Phase 1/2 trial in the UK with Cancer Research UK and reported encouraging early data in December 2025.