small-molecule-drugs
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Dominique Verhelle
Dominique Verhelle is a French-born scientist and biotech entrepreneur who co-founded and leads NextRNA Therapeutics, a Boston company building small-molecule drugs that target long non-coding RNA to treat cancers and neurological disorders. With a PhD in life sciences and an MBA in entrepreneurship, she has spent more than two decades across big pharma, venture capital, and startups - including Celgene, Pfizer, Third Rock Ventures, and Takeda - and helped launch Fulcrum Therapeutics and Cedilla Therapeutics before starting NextRNA. She is also an outspoken advocate for women founders in biotech.
Lina Yao
Lina Yao is a pharmaceutical scientist and the founder of Teon Therapeutics, a Redwood City, California biotech developing first-in-class, orally administered small-molecule cancer drugs that target G-protein coupled receptors to reverse tumor-driven immune suppression. A molecular pharmacologist by training with an MD and PhD and more than two decades in drug discovery, she built her career at CV Therapeutics and Gilead Sciences before launching Teon in 2018. She led the company through an oversubscribed $30 million Series A in 2021 and into the clinic with two novel programs: TT-702, an adenosine A2B receptor antagonist, and TT-816, a cannabinoid CB2 receptor antagonist being studied in combination with Merck's KEYTRUDA.
Michael Shih
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.
Darrin Miles
Darrin Miles is the President and CEO of Nested Therapeutics, a Cambridge, Massachusetts precision oncology company that launched in 2022 with $125 million in financing to hunt for cancer-driving mutations hiding in plain sight. A commercialization leader with more than two decades in healthcare, Miles spent 14 years at Genentech shepherding landmark cancer brands and later served as Chief Commercial Officer at Agios Pharmaceuticals, where he helped bring the first mutant-IDH therapies to acute myeloid leukemia patients. At Nested, he is translating computational biophysics, genomics, and chemical biology into drugs aimed at targets the rest of the field calls undruggable.
Jeffrey Stafford
Jeffrey Stafford is the CEO and co-founder of 858 Therapeutics, a San Diego clinical-stage biotech developing small-molecule cancer drugs against novel targets in DNA-damage repair, innate immunity and RNA epigenetics. A chemist by training, he has spent three decades turning molecules into medicines: his discovery teams contributed to three FDA-approved drugs, and he previously led Jecure Therapeutics (acquired by Genentech in 2018) and co-founded Quanticel Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Celgene in 2015). 858's lead asset, the PARG inhibitor ETX-19477, won FDA Fast Track status and posted a 57% response rate in BRCA-mutated ovarian cancer at ASCO 2026.
Maureen Hillenmeyer
Maureen Hillenmeyer is the founder and CEO of Hexagon Bio, a Menlo Park drug-discovery company that mines the genomes of fungi for hidden small molecules and engineers yeast to brew them into potential medicines. A former competitive swimmer turned computational biologist, she holds a PhD in biomedical informatics from Stanford and built the company out of a Stanford research program she led, raising more than $270 million to turn DNA sequence data into cancer and infectious-disease therapeutics.
Soongyu Choi
Soongyu Choi is the co-CEO and co-founder of Avelos Therapeutics, a Seoul-based clinical-stage precision oncology company chasing first-in-class small molecules in synthetic lethality, DNA damage response, and cell cycle control. A Harvard-trained chemist who spent a decade at PTC Therapeutics and led R&D at Yuhan and Hana Pharm, he co-founded Avelos in 2021 and was elevated from CTO to co-CEO in January 2024. His flagship program, AD1208, is a first-in-class MASTL kinase inhibitor he frames as a precise strike on cancers that have stopped responding to standard therapy.
Terry Rosen
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.
Jung Choi
Jung Choi is the President and CEO of Alterome Therapeutics, a clinical-stage precision oncology company pioneering mutation-specific cancer drugs. With over 20 years in biopharmaceutical leadership - spanning Gilead Sciences, InterMune, Chimerix, and Global Blood Therapeutics where he led a $5.4B Pfizer acquisition - Choi brought deal-making, strategy, and operational depth to Alterome when he was appointed CEO in April 2025. Under his leadership, Alterome has advanced two first-in-class inhibitors into Phase 1/1b trials targeting KRAS and AKT1 E17K oncogenic drivers, backed by $231M in total funding including a $132M Series B.