About Us ++ Mission
We are a purpose-driven team, passionate about leveraging our PRODEGY platform to discover and develop targeted protein degraders to address severe unmet patient needs. In doing so, we seek to build Biotheryx into a leader in next-generation targeted protein degradation.
About Us ++ Team
Dr. Leah Fung is the Chief Executive Officer of Biotheryx and a member of our Board of Directors. Previously, as our Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Fung was pivotal in the design and implementation of the Company’s PRODEGY protein degradation platform, which has generated a pipeline of first-in-class protein degraders. Dr. Fung created Biotheryx’s molecular glue screening library for novel neosubstrate discovery and directed research that resulted in more than 25 issued U.S. patents covering an extensive range of small molecule protein degraders. Prior, Dr. Fung served as Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry at NovoMedix, Associate Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Structural Genomix (acquired by Eli Lilly), and Assistant Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Structural Bioinformatics. Dr. Fung also held leadership positions in research at Signal Pharmaceuticals and Celgene. Additionally, she was among leading scientists who pioneered combinatorial chemistry technologies and has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications. She is also co-inventor on more than 40 issued U.S. patents and hundreds of international patents. Dr. Fung received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine.
Dr. Jeremy Barton joined Biotheryx as Acting Chief Medical Officer in August 2023. He is responsible for the Company’s program development activities, including clinical and non-clinical operations, regulatory affairs and medical strategy. Dr. Barton has over 30 years of global oncology drug development experience. He previously served as Chief Medical Officer of Biogen (formerly Biogen Idec), eFFECTOR Therapeutics and Mirati Therapeutics. Prior, he worked at Pfizer as Head of Oncology, Biotechnology Clinical Development, overseeing the transition of all oncology compounds from research through investigational new drug applications to proof of concept studies. Dr. Barton holds an M.S. in physiological sciences from Oxford University and an M.D. from University College Hospital Medical School in London. He trained in internal medicine and clinical oncology in the United Kingdom and practiced for 11 years in the National Health Service. Dr. Barton is Board Certified in internal medicine and clinical oncology, a member of the Royal College of Physicians in the United Kingdom, a fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists and a member of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine.
Dr. Aparajita Hoskote Chourasia joined Biotheryx in 2017. Dr. Chourasia was previously Vice President of Biology in October 2021, Vice President of Preclinical and Translational Biology in April 2023, and became Senior Vice President of Development and Biology in January 2024. Aparajita leads the full preclinical biology effort for development of targeted protein degraders at Biotheryx. She has been instrumental in identifying targets and establishing assays to assist in drug discovery efforts and has contributed to the development of the Company’s intellectual property. She has accrued expertise in molecular pathways in cancer, tumor metabolism, tumor models, inflammation and assay development while working at Veridex (a Johnson & Johnson company), Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research and the Brigham and Women Hospital (teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School). Dr. Chourasia earned her Ph.D. in cancer biology from the University of Chicago, where her research focused on the tumor suppressive function of BNIP3 mediated mitochondrial autophagy in mammary and pancreatic tumorigenesis and its potential as a critical biomarker for early-stage disease diagnosis. Her work led to successful NIH-funded research awards and peer reviewed research articles and reviews. Dr. Chourasia received an M.S. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and an M.S. in translational science from Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Joe Ninosky joined Biotheryx as Executive Director of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) in January 2023. He became Vice President, CMC in January 2024. Joe is responsible for supervising the development, scale up and tech transfer of Biotheryx’s drug development programs and overseeing multiple contract development and manufacturing organizations. He has 20 years of life sciences experience, previously including roles at pharmaceutical drug development and medical device/diagnostic companies. He has focused on process development and manufacturing within FDA-regulated environments and led numerous development, scale-up, and tech transfer projects, with experience involving peptide, oligonucleotide, small molecule and ganglioside drug substances and drug products. Joe holds a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of California, San Diego and an M.S. in chemical engineering from Oregon State University.
Dr. Shenlin Huang joined Biotheryx as Senior Director of Chemistry in June 2022. He became Executive Director of Chemistry in January 2024. Shenlin oversees the Company’s Medicinal Chemistry department, including database, computational chemistry and ADME/PK research. He previously served as Group Leader at AbbVie Oncology Discovery, where he led the company’s protein degradation program. Prior, Shenlin worked as Senior Research Investigator at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research where his team designed, synthesized and developed the FDA approved drug BRAFTOVI®. During this time, he also contributed to the development of several other clinical compounds. Prior, Shenlin was Senior Scientist at Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical. Dr. Huang received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of South Carolina and conducted his postdoctoral training at North Carolina State University.
David Pieters joined Biotheryx in 2021 and became the Senior Director of Finance and Accounting in August 2023. David is responsible for leading the Company’s finance function. He previously held various finance roles in the biopharmaceutical industry, mostly with publicly traded companies. Prior, he worked at Mayer Hoffman McCann P.C. in the audit and assurance practice. David holds a B.S. in accounting from the University of the Free State in South Africa and an M.S. in accounting from San Diego State University. David is a CPA licensed in California.
Dr. Akinori Okano joined Biotheryx in 2022 and became the Director of Medicinal Chemistry in March 2023. Akinori has been responsible for the discovery of preclinical development candidates and supporting IND-enabling studies. He previously served as Senior Scientist II at AbbVie where he led chemistry efforts for the discovery and development of small molecule drugs in multiple oncology discovery programs. Prior, he worked at Rapt Therapeutics where he was instrumental in the discovery of immuno-oncology agents, advancing preclinical and clinical assets. Before, he served as Assistant Professor at the Scripps Research Institute, developing novel antibiotics against resistant bacterial infections. Dr. Okano received his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical sciences from Kyoto University and conducted his postdoctoral research at the Scripps Research Institute.
Dr. Arvind Shakya joined Biotheryx in 2022 and became Director of Pharmacology in March 2023. He is responsible for conducting the Company’s preclinical and translational in vivo pharmacology studies. Dr. Shakya previously served as Principal Scientist at Celgene, where he provided pharmacology support to the molecular glue, bifunctional degrader and inhibitor programs. He has more than 15 years of experience developing immunology and oncology animal models as well as GEM models to support preclinical, translational and toxicological studies. Dr. Shakya received a DVM (BVSc and AH) from India and a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Utah.
Dr. Venkat Mali joined Biotheryx as Director of Medicinal Chemistry in July 2022. Dr. Mali supports the Company’s discovery of targeted protein degradation-based drugs and molecular glue discovery programs. He previously worked at AbbVie, where he was a part of the team that discovered BTK degrader, ABBV-101. Prior, Dr. Mali worked at ChemoCentryx and Metabasis Therapeutics. At ChemoCentryx, he supported the discovery of small molecule drug candidates, which resulted in an FDA-approved drug, TAVNEOS™, three Phase 2 clinical compounds and one Phase 1 clinical compound. Additionally, Venkat has co-authored 48 publications and patents. Dr. Mali received a Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, in synthetic organic chemistry. He conducted his postdoctoral research at the Scripps Research Institute.
About Us ++ Board of Directors
Dr. Leah Fung is the Chief Executive Officer of Biotheryx and a member of our Board of Directors. Previously, as our Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Fung was pivotal in the design and implementation of the Company’s PRODEGY protein degradation platform, which has generated a pipeline of first-in-class protein degraders. Dr. Fung created Biotheryx’s molecular glue screening library for novel neosubstrate discovery and directed research that resulted in more than 25 issued U.S. patents covering an extensive range of small molecule protein degraders. Prior, Dr. Fung served as Vice President of Medicinal Chemistry at NovoMedix, Associate Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Structural Genomix (acquired by Eli Lilly), and Assistant Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Structural Bioinformatics. Dr. Fung also held leadership positions in research at Signal Pharmaceuticals and Celgene. Additionally, she was among leading scientists who pioneered combinatorial chemistry technologies and has authored over 20 peer-reviewed publications. She is also co-inventor on more than 40 issued U.S. patents and hundreds of international patents. Dr. Fung received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine.
Jack Noelke is a Director at Biotheryx. He led the company’s Series D round at MSD Partners in 2020 and has more than a decade of experience in the investment industry, including prior roles at T. Rowe Price and Morgan Stanley. Mr. Noelke earned his B.A., cum laude, from Williams College.
Dr. David Stirling was a Co-Founder of Celgene, and its former Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President, Pharmaceutical Research & Development. He was responsible for initiating the Thalidomide Clinical and Research Program, which led to Celgene’s first clinical product, Thalomid®. Under Dr. Stirling’s leadership, the blockbuster franchise of Thalomid® derivatives (Revlimid®, Pomalyst® and Otezla®) were developed, and these have played a major role in propelling Celgene into the top-tier of public biotechnology companies worldwide. Prior to joining Celgene, Dr. Stirling held various scientific and management positions within the biotechnology group of Celanese Research Company, from which Celgene was spun off. Dr. Stirling received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Warwick in England, where he studied the industrial applications of novel oxygenase enzymes. Dr. Stirling is the author of numerous publications and holds over 30 U.S. patents.
Nikhil Thatte is a Partner with Lumira Ventures and has been with the firm since March 2019. Nikhil is primarily focused on next generation modalities including protein degradation, gene therapy, cell therapy, and gene editing. Nikhil represents Lumira Ventures as a board member or observer with a number of its portfolio companies including Specific Biologics, Alpina Biotechnology, XyloCor Therapeutics and PIC Therapeutics and co-led Lumira’s investment and successful exit in ESSA Pharma. Prior to Lumira Ventures, Nikhil was a Director with DRI Capital, a pioneer in royalty monetization solutions, where he managed relationships with inventors, academics, and companies, and played a key role in the due diligence process as part of the investment team. Prior to DRI Capital, Nikhil was a Consultant with ZS Associates, a global marketing and sales consulting firm where he provided expertise to over 20 pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients across a broad range of projects and therapeutic areas. He also served as an Analyst with Bayer AG and Health Canada. Nikhil holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from McGill University.
Dr. David Anderson is the Chief Scientific Officer of Immunophotonics, specializing in precision medicine drug discovery and development for oncology and autoimmunity/inflammation. With a history of co-founding and managing drug discovery companies, including Signal Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Celgene Corporation), Proprius Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Cypress Bioscience), and Capella Therapeutics (acquired by Nalo Therapeutics/Samsara BioCapital), he has overseen the development of six FDA-approved drugs, ten INDs, two NDAs, and two personalized diagnostic products. David has raised over $250M in funding, secured $150M in partnerships with biopharmaceutical companies, and received $4M in SBIR grants. He has 35 peer-reviewed publications, over 50 presentations/abstracts, 10 patents, and continues to make significant contributions to the field. David received his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri Medical School and has held academic positions at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and The Scripps Research Institute.
Jaime Vieser is the manager of the private investment firm, Brushwood LLC. Mr. Vieser has over three decades of experience investing across various asset classes and served for nearly a decade as Co-managing Partner of Castle Hill Asset Management LLC (“Castle Hill”), a multi-billion-dollar asset manager and hedge fund based in London, UK. Prior to founding Castle Hill, for 10 years, Mr. Vieser was responsible for the High Yield Sales and Trading Group in London at Deutsche Bank AG, a multinational investment bank and financial services company. Earlier in his career, Mr. Vieser worked as a banker in the Leveraged Finance division of Bankers Trust Company, a bank holding company that was acquired by Deutsche Bank AG in 1999. Mr. Vieser holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan and a Master of Business Administration from the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University.