Angèle Maki, PhD, is a biopharmaceutical business development executive with more than 20 years of deal-making across emerging biotechs and global pharma. In December 2025 she became the first Chief Business Officer of Ability Biotherapeutics, a Montreal-based company building logic-gated antibodies with its generative-AI platform AbiLeap. A Stanford-trained biological chemist who started at the University of Winnipeg, she has held senior roles at Medarex, Bristol Myers Squibb, Genentech, 23andMe, Merck, Eli Lilly, ReCode Therapeutics and Callio Therapeutics, and chairs the non-profit Canadian Entrepreneurs in Life Sciences.
Sanuj Ravindran, M.D., is the CEO of Simcha Therapeutics, a New Haven clinical-stage immunobiology company turning a once-overlooked immune molecule, interleukin-18, into a cancer weapon. A board-certified physician who spent a decade as a venture capitalist before becoming a serial biotech company-builder, Ravindran took the helm in 2022 to push ST-067, a decoy-resistant IL-18 designed to slip past the body's own off-switch and reawaken the immune system inside tumors. He has run drug programs across oncology and rare disease, structured more than $2 billion in deals, and bets his career on therapies that promise more than incremental gains.
Abcuro is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in Newton, Massachusetts developing first-in-class immunotherapies that selectively deplete highly cytotoxic T cells implicated in autoimmune tissue damage and certain cancers. Its lead program, ulviprubart (ABC008), is a monoclonal antibody targeting the KLRG1 receptor, advanced primarily for inclusion body myositis (IBM) - a progressive muscle-wasting disease with no approved treatments - alongside pipeline work in T-cell large granular lymphocytic leukemia and T/NK-cell lymphomas.
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.
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.
HelixNano is a Cambridge/Boston-based biotechnology company building what it calls the world's most advanced mRNA platform - combining synthetic biology and machine learning to make vaccines and therapies that augment the immune system. Founded in 2014 by sci-fi novelist and mathematician Hannu Rajaniemi and synthetic biologist Nikolai Eroshenko, the Y Combinator-backed startup has pursued variant-resistant COVID-19 vaccine candidates and machine-learning-designed personalized cancer vaccines built on 'precision neoantigens'.
HotSpot Therapeutics is a Boston-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering a new class of allosteric medicines. Using its proprietary Smart Allostery and SpotFinder platforms, the company systematically identifies 'natural hotspots' - regulatory allosteric pockets the body uses to switch proteins on and off - to drug targets long considered undruggable. Its small-molecule pipeline spans oncology (CBL-B, CBM signalosome/KRAS) and autoimmune disease (IRF5), with its lead CBL-B inhibitor HST-1011 in Phase 1/2 clinical trials.
Kira Biotech is a Brisbane-based clinical-stage immunology company developing first-in-class antibody therapeutics that retrain the immune system instead of broadly suppressing it. Its lead candidate, KB312, selectively depletes activated immune cells to restore immune tolerance, aiming to treat difficult autoimmune and inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, type 1 diabetes, and graft-versus-host disease. Built on decades of dendritic-cell research from Australian institutes and led by US rheumatologist Dr Dan Baker, the company launched with a A$20 million Series A in 2019 led by OneVentures and IP Group.
Larkspur Biosciences is a Cambridge, Massachusetts precision-oncology company building first-in-class small molecule protein degraders that attack cancer cells where they are most vulnerable. Using its machine-learning-enabled LarkX platform to pinpoint 'cancer cell fitness' genes, Larkspur designs drugs that trigger tumor-intrinsic cell death and disrupt how cancers hide from the immune system. Its lead candidate, LRK-4189, degrades the lipid kinase PIP4K2C and entered first-in-human Phase 1 testing in December 2025 for microsatellite stable colorectal cancer.
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.'
Catherine Sabatos-Peyton is a cancer immunologist turned biotech CEO who runs Larkspur Biosciences, a Cambridge, Massachusetts company building small-molecule drugs that attack cancer's ability to hide from the immune system. As a Harvard PhD student she helped first describe TIM-3, now a major checkpoint protein; she later led discovery of the anti-TIM-3 antibody sabatolimab at CoStim and Novartis. In 2021 she stepped from the lab bench to the corner office, and now leads an all-female executive team whose lead drug, the PIP4K2C degrader LRK-4189, entered human trials in late 2025.
Dan Baker is a physician-scientist turned biotech founder who spent two decades at Johnson & Johnson's Janssen division helping bring immunology blockbusters Remicade, Simponi and Stelara to patients, before launching Brisbane-based Kira Biotech in 2019 as its founding CEO. Kira is developing KB312, a first-in-class antibody designed to selectively retrain the immune system rather than broadly suppress it, aimed at autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and type 1 diabetes. A rheumatologist who taught at the University of Pennsylvania for 18 years, Baker also advises drug-development organisations and serves as a healthcare venture partner.
OncoC4, Inc. is a Rockville, Maryland clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company building first-in-class and best-in-class antibody therapies for hard-to-treat cancers and Alzheimer's disease. Founded by immunologists Yang Liu and Pan Zheng, the company discovered the innate immune checkpoint CD24-Siglec-10 and is advancing a pipeline led by gotistobart (ONC-392), a next-generation anti-CTLA-4 antibody partnered with BioNTech, alongside SIGLEC10, PD-1/VEGF, and CD24-targeting programs.
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.
Salubris Biotherapeutics (SalubrisBio) is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in Gaithersburg, Maryland that engineers complex biologics for diseases with few good options - chiefly heart failure and cancer. Founded in 2016 as the US arm of China's Shenzhen Salubris Pharmaceuticals, its lead candidate JK07 is an antibody-fusion protein designed to harness the regenerative NRG-1/ErbB4 pathway in failing hearts while dialing out the side effects, and its oncology programs JK08 and JK06 pursue solid tumors through immune engagement and a 5T4-targeted biparatopic antibody-drug conjugate.
Errik Anderson is the founder and CEO of Alloy Therapeutics, a Lexington, Massachusetts biotech he built around a single idea: stop selling drugs and start selling access to the tools that make them. A bioengineer and serial entrepreneur, he has founded or co-founded seven venture-backed biotech companies - Adimab, Alloy, Compass Therapeutics, Alector, Arsanis, and Avitide among them - whose technologies have helped discover more than 90 therapeutic antibodies now approved or in FDA review. Alloy reinvests 100% of its revenue into science and, by design, can never be sold. Outside the lab, Anderson co-owns the New England Free Jacks pro rugby team and has chaired Major League Rugby's Board of Governors.
TORL BioTherapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in Culver City, California developing antibody-based cancer therapies, including antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and monoclonal antibodies. Built on discoveries from the UCLA laboratory of Dennis Slamon - the scientist behind Herceptin and Ibrance - TORL is advancing a pipeline against novel cancer targets such as Claudin 6, Claudin 18.2, CDH17, and DLK1. Its lead program, TORL-1-23 (ixotatug vedotin), a CLDN6-targeted ADC, is in pivotal trials for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. The company has raised over $450 million across multiple rounds, including a $96 million Series C in October 2025.
Geneos Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotherapeutics company in Plymouth Meeting / Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, building DNA-based personalized immunotherapies for cancer. Its proprietary GT-EPIC platform reads a patient's own tumor mutations and manufactures a custom DNA plasmid vaccine encoding up to 40 of that patient's unique neoantigens, delivered intradermally with an IL-12 cytokine adjuvant and electroporation. In 2024 the company published Phase 1/2 GT-30 data in Nature Medicine showing its vaccine plus pembrolizumab generated new neoantigen-specific T cells and clinical responses in advanced liver cancer - billed as the first definitive demonstration of a personalized cancer vaccine boosting response to anti-PD-1 therapy.
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.
Alloy Therapeutics is a biotechnology ecosystem company that democratizes access to the tools, platforms, and expertise needed to discover and develop new drugs. Founded in 2017 by Errik Anderson and headquartered in the Boston area (Lexington, Massachusetts), Alloy gives more than 200 partners non-exclusive, affordable access to proprietary technologies - led by its royalty-free ATX-Gx transgenic-mouse antibody discovery platform - along with discovery services and a venture studio that builds new biotech companies. Its model is unusual: Alloy reinvests revenue into innovation and its controlling stock cannot be sold. In April 2026 the company raised a $40M Series E at a $1B valuation.
Kytopen is a Cambridge, Massachusetts biotech and MIT spinout building Flowfect, a non-viral, continuous-flow platform that uses fluid flow plus electric fields to deliver mRNA, DNA and CRISPR payloads into cells. The technology aims to engineer hundreds of billions of cells in minutes, removing a major bottleneck in discovering, developing and manufacturing advanced cell therapies like CAR-T and NK-cell treatments.
BlueSphere Bio is a Pittsburgh-based clinical-stage biotechnology company developing personalized T-cell receptor (TCR) therapies for cancer. Spun out of the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Enterprises in 2017, the company's proprietary TCXpress platform rapidly discovers and screens natural T-cell receptors that can target cancer antigens hidden inside cells - a reach beyond what conventional CAR-T therapies achieve. Its lead programs target high-risk hematologic malignancies such as relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia.
Russell Beckerman is a biotech entrepreneur and Co-Founder & CEO of Overture Therapeutics, a Cambridge-based company engineering precision antibody medicines targeting obesity and metabolic dysfunction. He previously co-founded 82VS, a venture studio embedded within Alloy Therapeutics that has launched nine drug companies since 2020. His work sits at the intersection of cutting-edge antibody biology, company creation, and the conviction that the next generation of obesity drugs will be antibodies - not peptides.
CatalYm is a German clinical-stage biotech developing visugromab, a GDF-15 neutralizing monoclonal antibody designed to reverse immunotherapy resistance in solid tumors and address cancer cachexia.
Orca Bio is a late-stage biotechnology company in Menlo Park, California, building high-precision allogeneic cell therapies. Its proprietary single-cell sorting platform purifies donor immune and stem cells to engineer optimized therapeutic mixtures aimed at curing blood cancers and autoimmune diseases, with its lead candidate Orca-T currently under FDA priority review.
Srini Akkaraju, MD/PhD, is the Founder and Managing General Partner of Samsara BioCapital, a Palo Alto-based venture capital firm he founded in 2016 to translate cutting-edge biology into transformative therapeutics. With a Stanford MD/PhD in Immunology and a computer science foundation from Rice University, Akkaraju has spent over 25 years at the intersection of science and capital - from corporate development at Genentech to partnership roles at J.P. Morgan Partners, Panorama Capital, New Leaf Venture Partners, and Sofinnova Ventures. Samsara has built a portfolio of 93+ companies with 32 IPO exits, backing breakthroughs in immunotherapy, cell therapy, kidney disease, and gene therapy. His conviction-driven approach is evident in moves like a $19M personal stake in Scholar Rock, and his belief that biotech is entering an 'unbelievable innovation cycle' over the next two to three decades.
Cheng Liu is the founder, President, and CEO of Eureka Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Emeryville, California. A molecular cell biologist trained at UC Berkeley and Peking University, Liu invented a novel class of TCR mimic antibodies that allow engineered T cells to recognize intracellular tumor antigens - a major challenge in treating solid tumors. Since founding Eureka in 2006 after a decade at Chiron/Novartis, he has built a pipeline of ARTEMIS T-cell therapies targeting liver cancer, multiple myeloma, and neuroblastoma, with the company's ECT204 program earning FDA RMAT Designation in January 2026 - one of the highest-priority designations the FDA gives to regenerative medicine therapies. Eureka has raised over $168 million in total funding and holds more than 500 patents worldwide.
Rami Elghandour is Chairman and CEO of Arcellx (NASDAQ: ACLX), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation cell therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases. An engineer turned venture capitalist turned serial CEO, he has led two successful IPOs, built two multibillion-dollar public companies, and raised over $1.75 billion in capital. At Arcellx, he transformed the company from an early-stage startup into a commercial-ready organization with a peak valuation exceeding $6 billion, advancing the anito-cel BCMA CAR-T therapy toward FDA approval for relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma. A TEDx speaker on unconscious bias and gender equity, Rami is also an executive producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary 'The Voice of Hind Rajab' and the Sundance-premiered 'American Doctor.'
Terry Rosen is the CEO and co-founder of Arcus Biosciences, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing combination cancer immunotherapies. A medicinal chemist by training with a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, Rosen has spent over 30 years at the intersection of chemistry and oncology - from Abbott Laboratories and Pfizer to Amgen, and then co-founding Flexus Biosciences which sold to Bristol-Myers Squibb for $1.25 billion in 2015. He immediately used that platform to launch Arcus, which has since secured a landmark 10-year partnership with Gilead Sciences and advanced multiple molecules into pivotal clinical studies, including casdatifan, a best-in-class HIF-2α inhibitor showing strong results in kidney cancer.
Dr. Pavan K. Cheruvu is the President and CEO of Bitterroot Bio, a Palo Alto-based biotech pioneering the field of cardio-immunology — the intersection of the immune system and cardiovascular disease. A Rhodes Scholar, board-certified cardiologist, and physician-scientist who trained at Duke, Oxford, Harvard/MIT, Johns Hopkins, and UCSF, Cheruvu is guiding Bitterroot Bio's lead program BRB-002 — a first-in-class CD47-targeting therapy for atherosclerosis — through clinical development after a landmark $145M Series A in 2023 and positive Phase 1 results in 2025.