CytomX

Sean A. McCarthy
D.Phil.

Chief Executive Officer and Chairman

Dr. McCarthy joined CytomX in 2010 as the chief business officer, served as the chief executive officer (CEO) since 2011, and has been the CEO and chairman since 2019. Previously, Dr. McCarthy was a transactional partner at Pappas Ventures. Prior to Pappas, Sean headed business development and strategy at SGX Pharmaceuticals, a structure-based drug discovery company focused on oncology. Earlier in his career he served in various research and development roles at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Dr. McCarthy is an author on multiple peer-reviewed scientific publications and issued patents. He is a member of the board of directors of Oncoresponse, Inc. and a member of the board of directors and executive committee of California Life Sciences. Dr. McCarthy received his B.S. degree in biochemistry and pharmacology at King’s College, University of London. He also received an M.B.A. from the Rady School of Management at UCSD and a DPhil in cancer biology from St. John’s College, University of Oxford.

Alan Ashworth
Ph.D., FRS

Director

Dr. Ashworth is a world-renowned expert in cancer research and a global leader in cancer therapy development. He serves in multitude of roles, including as the president of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center; senior vice president for cancer services at UCSF Health; a professor of medicine within the division of hematology/oncology, department of medicine; and  the E. Dixon Heise Distinguished Professor in Oncology. Previously, Dr. Ashworth was chief executive officer of the Institute of Cancer Research and director of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Center in London, U.K. He is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Dr. Ashworth has received a number of scientific prizes and awards, including the European Society of Medical Oncology Lifetime Achievement Award, the David T. Workman Memorial Award of the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, the Meyenburg Foundation’s Cancer Research Award, the Basser Global Prize, the Genetics Society Medal, and the Susan G Komen Brinker award. Dr. Ashworth received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from University College London, U.K., and his B.Sc. in chemistry and biochemistry from Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London, U.K.

Halley E. Gilbert

Director

Ms. Gilbert brings 20 years of operational, transactional, and strategic leadership experience within the biopharmaceutical sector to CytomX, having served in roles overseeing the transformation of companies from development to the commercial stage. Currently, Ms. Gilbert serves as the Chief Legal Officer of CARGO Therapeutics, a position she has held since September 2023. Ms. Gilbert has also previously served as the Chief Legal Officer at NeoGenomics Laboratories, where she oversaw NeoGenomics’ global legal functions and affairs. Additionally, Ms. Gilbert has served in numerous corporate leadership positions including chief operating officer at Adagio Therapeutics and senior vice president, corporate development and chief administrative officer, at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Adagio and Ironwood, Ms. Gilbert served as vice president, deputy general counsel at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where she managed the legal function during the company’s first commercial launch of an acute care antibiotic. Prior to her time with Cubist, Ms. Gilbert served as corporate counsel at Genzyme Corporation. Ms. Gilbert began her career at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where she specialized in mergers and acquisitions and securities law. Ms. Gilbert currently serves on the board of Arcutis Biotherapeutics and Vaxcyte, Inc. Ms. Gilbert received a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law and a B.A. from Tufts University.

Elaine V. Jones
Ph.D.

Director

Dr. Elaine Jones served as the vice president of worldwide business development and senior partner at Pfizer Ventures, the venture capital arm of Pfizer, Inc. before retiring in 2019. As Pfizer Ventures executive director starting in 2008, Dr. Jones was responsible for making and managing venture investments for Pfizer as well as serving in Board roles for several and therapeutic companies. Prior to this, Dr. Jones held the position of general partner at EuclidSR Partners, a venture firm specializing in private investment in public equity within the health sciences, healthcare, biopharmaceutical sectors. Dr. Jones began her investing career in 1999 at S.R. One, the corporate investment fund of GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to this, Dr. Jones served as director of scientific licensing at SmithKline Beecham and as a research scientist in the research and development division of SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceutical. During her venture career, Dr. Jones has served on the boards of more than 20 early to mid-stage biotechnology, therapeutic and pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Jones currently serves as a member of the board of directors of Gritstone Oncology and NextCure. Dr. Jones holds a B.S. in biology from Juniata College and a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Pittsburgh.

James R. Meyers

Director

James R. Meyers brings more than 30 years of worldwide commercial leadership experience within the biotechnology industry. Mr. Meyers served as Gilead’s executive vice president of worldwide commercial operations where he was responsible for all commercial activities including pricing and market access in North America, Europe, Middle East, Australia and Japan. Since his retirement in 2018, Mr. Meyers now serves as a senior advisor to the company. Over his 22-year career at Gilead, Mr. Meyers led some of the most important and successful product launches in the history of the biopharmaceutical industry, most notably in the therapeutic areas of HCV and HIV. Prior to joining Gilead, Mr. Meyers held positions of increasing responsibility in sales, training, marketing and management with Zeneca Pharmaceuticals and Astra USA. Mr. Meyers currently serves on the Board of Arbutus Biopharma Corporation, a public biopharmaceutical company focused on commercializing a cure for patients suffering from chronic hepatitis B infection. Mr. Meyers holds a B.S. in economics from Boston College.

Mani Mohindru
Ph.D.

Director

Dr. Mohindru is a skilled biotech executive with several years of biopharmaceutical industry leadership, coupled with experience on Wall Street. Dr. Mohindru currently serves as the chief executive officer at Novasenta, a biotech company focused on discovering novel targets for the treatment of cancer. Dr. Mohindru has served in numerous company leadership positions, including chief executive officer at CereXis, chief financial officer and chief strategy officer at Cara Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CARA) and chief strategy officer at Curis, Inc. (Nasdaq: CRIS). Prior to her leadership roles in the biotechnology industry, Dr. Mohindru spent many years as an equity research analyst covering the biotechnology sector at UBS, Credit Suisse and ThinkEquity. She also co-founded a privately- held biotechnology company and was a healthcare industry consultant. Currently, she is a member of the board of directors of SAB Biotherapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company advancing a new class of immunotherapies. Dr. Mohindru received her Ph.D. in neurosciences from Northwestern University, her master’s degree in biotechnology, and her B.S. in human biology with honors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.

Zhen Su
M.D.

Director

Dr. Su joined our Board of Directors in March 2024. Currently, Dr. Su serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Marengo Therapeutics and member of its Board of Directors, having held both positions since July 2021. Prior to joining Marengo, Dr. Su served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of the Oncology Business Franchise for Merck KGaA from March 2019 to July 2021 and concurrently as Merck’s US Head of its Oncology Business Unit between July 2020 to July 2021. Dr. Su served as Chief Medical Officer of EMD Serono, part of the larger Merck group, from October 2017 to May 2019. Dr. Su currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors at Karyopharm Therapeutics Inc., a position he has held since August 2023.  Before his career in the life sciences industry, Dr. Su served on the faculty of Duke University Medical School between 2001 to 2006, where he led early oncology clinical studies focusing on mRNA-based and cell-based immunotherapy, and then, between 2006 to 2009, served as the director of the Cell and Gene Therapy program at the University of Florida. Dr. Su received his Doctor of Medicine from Technical University of Dresden in Germany and his MBA from the University of Toronto in Canada.

Matthew Young

Director

Matthew P. Young is a managing director of Longitude Capital. Prior to joining Longitude Capital in 2022, Mr. Young was the chief operating officer and chief financial officer of GRAIL, a developer of blood cancer tests that was acquired by Illumina for $8 billion in 2021. Prior to joining GRAIL in October 2019, Mr. Young served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Jazz Pharmaceuticals – a role he held since February 2015. He served as a senior vice president and the chief financial officer of Jazz beginning in 2014 after working as the senior vice president of corporate development of Jazz since joining the company in 2013. Prior to joining Jazz, Mr. Young worked in investment banking for approximately 20 years, most recently as a managing director in global healthcare of Barclays Capital Inc., an investment banking firm, where his role included acting as the co-head of life sciences at Barclays Capital. From 2007 to 2008, Mr. Young served as a managing director of Citigroup Global Markets Inc., an investment banking firm, and from 2003 to 2007, as a managing director of Lehman Brothers Inc., an investment banking firm. In 2015, he joined the board of directors of PRA Health Sciences Inc., a contract research company. Mr. Young received a B.S. in economics and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Lisa Coussens
Ph.D.

Hildegard Lamfrom Endowed Chair in Basic Science, Professor and Chairwoman of the Department of Cell, Developmental and Cancer Biology, and Deputy Director for Basic & Translational Research at the Oregon Health & Science University Knight Cancer Institute

Dr. Coussens is the chair of the department of cell, developmental, and cancer biology, the deputy director for basic research in the Knight Cancer Institute at Oregon Health & Sciences University (OHSU), and holds the Hildegard Lamfrom chair in basic science. She received her Ph.D. in biological chemistry from UCLA in 1993 and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in cancer biology at UCSF in Douglas Hanahans’ laboratory. Dr. Coussens’ research focus is on elucidating the roles of immune cells and their mediators as critical regulators of solid tumor development. Her lab reported that lymphocytes selectively regulate myeloid cell functions in mouse models of squamous and mammary carcinoma, mesothelioma, and pancreatic adenocarcinoma and that the selective inhibition of key factors regulating either myeloid recruitment or function significantly enhances the efficacy of chemo- and radiation therapy, thereby extending long-term survival of tumor-bearing mice. These discoveries are currently being translated into the clinical realm; Dr. Coussens is the lead PI on a KOMEN Promise grant conducting an investigator-initiated multi-center Phase Ib/II clinical trial evaluating a novel macrophage-antagonist in combination with chemotherapy in women with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer. More recently, Dr. Coussens was awarded a Stand Up to Cancer – Lustgarten Foundation Pancreatic Cancer Convergence Dream Team Translational Research grant focused on clinical evaluation of immune-based therapies in pancreas cancer. Her contributions to this international team are based on her laboratory’s identification of B cells and humoral immune-mediated factors regulating T cells and immune suppression in squamous and pancreas cancer. Specifically, her studies support the evaluation of a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor plus chemotherapy in Phase Ib/II clinical trials of pancreatic cancer and head and neck cancer patients. Dr. Coussens has received the prestigious Gertrude B. Elion Award from the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), the Mallinckrodt Award for Medical Science, a V Foundation Scholar Award, and two sequential Era of Hope Scholar Awards from the Department of Defense breast cancer research program. In 2012, she was the recipient of the AACR-Women in Cancer Research Charlotte Friend Memorial Lectureship and, in 2015, the recipient of the 13th Rosalind E. Franklin Award from the National Cancer Institute.

Christopher Hunter, Ph.D.
Ph.D

Mindy Halikman Heyer President’s Distinguished Chair

School of Veterinary Medicine

University of Pennsylvania

Professor Hunter obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Glasgow, Britain and a post-doctoral fellowship at Glasgow developed his interest in the role of cytokines in immunity in the CNS. This was followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford, before joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania. There his research group continues to study the cytokines that influence innate and adaptive immunity to infection. His collaborative studies with the academic and biotechnology communities over the last 25 years on the IL-12 family members has helped to define their role in the induction of cell mediated immunity that have been broadly relevant to many types of inflammatory processes. For example, his discovery that IL-27 was a potent inhibitor of cell mediated immunity has formed the basis for work on its therapeutic potential in cancer and autoimmunity. He has provided service as a journal editor or member of editorial boards as well as extensive peer review for the NIH and HHMI. He is a past president of the International Cytokine and Interferon Society, served as Chair of the Department of Pathobiology and is currently the Mindy Halikman Heyer President’s Distinguished Chair and Director of the Institute for Infection and Zoonotic Diseases.

W. Michael Kavanaugh
M.D.

Former Chief Scientific Officer, CytomX

Attending staff physician at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center and associate clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco

Michael Kavanaugh, M.D. joined CytomX in January 2015 and served as senior vice president, chief scientific officer, and head of research and early development until December 2020. Prior to joining CytomX, Dr. Kavanaugh was senior vice president and chief scientific officer of Five Prime Therapeutics. Since joining the company in 2009, he held multiple positions in research and development and led the growth of the company’s therapeutic pipeline. Before Five Prime, Dr. Kavanaugh served as vice president of Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics, Inc. and executive director of oncology biologics in the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research. He joined Novartis in 2006 as part of the company’s acquisition of the Chiron Corporation, where he was vice president and head of antibody and protein therapeutics research. Dr. Kavanaugh received his medical doctorate from Vanderbilt University and his bachelor’s degree in molecular biochemistry and biophysics from Yale University. He completed training in internal medicine, cardiovascular disease, and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, San Francisco and the Cardiovascular Research Institute. Dr. Kavanaugh also currently serves as an attending staff physician at the San Francisco Veterans Administration Medical Center and as an associate clinical professor of medicine at UCSF.

John Lambert
Ph.D.

Consultant and Scientific Advisor

Honorary Professor, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Dr. Lambert graduated from Christ’s College, University of Cambridge (England, UK), with a degree in natural sciences in 1972. He then earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Cambridge in 1976, working on the structure of glycolytic enzymes under the supervision of Professor Richard N. Perham. Dr Lambert’s postdoctoral training was working on ribosome structure in the laboratory of Dr. Robert R. Traut at the University of California, Davis (1976-1980) and working on the arom multienzyme complex in the laboratory of Dr John R. Coggins at the University of Glasgow, Scotland (1980-1982). In 1982, Dr. Lambert joined the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School, working on the ImmunoGen-funded programs to develop antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and immunotoxins as anti-cancer therapeutics. Dr. Lambert joined ImmunoGen in 1987 when the company established independent research laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts. After working in a variety of roles at the company, Dr. Lambert served as chief scientific officer from 2008 until 2015. In 2016, he became a distinguished research fellow at the company until his retirement at the end of 2017. He served on the executive committee of the company as the executive vice president of research from 2008 until 2016, followed by a year on the executive committee in an emeritus capacity until retirement. During Dr Lambert’s tenure in leadership roles at ImmunoGen, the company invented the ADC technology that resulted in the Genentech/Roche drug, Kadcyla® (approved in 2013 for treating HER2+ breast cancer), as well as numerous other ADCs taken into clinical development.  One of these is ImmunoGen’s promising drug candidate, mirvetuximab soravtansine, an ADC currently in a phase 3 trial for the treatment of platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. Dr Lambert is the author/co-author of over 120 peer-reviewed scientific publications. In 2016, Dr Lambert was elected as a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE).  In 2018, he was appointed as an honorary professor of Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK.

Christopher M. Overall
Ph.D.

Canada Research Chair in Protease Proteomics and Systems Biology

The University of British Columbia

Dr. Overall is a professor and Tier 1 Canada Research chair in proteinase proteomics and systems biology at the University of British Columbia, Centre for Blood Research. He completed his undergraduate in science with honors and master’s degrees at the University of Adelaide, South Australia; his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Toronto; and was an MRC Centennial Fellow in his post-doctoral work with Dr. Michael Smith, Nobel Laureate, Biotechnology Laboratory at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He was a visiting senior scientist at British Biotech Pharmaceuticals, Oxford, UK while on sabbatical in 1997 and 1998, and in 2004 and 2008 he was a visiting senior scientist at the Expert Protease Platform, Novartis Pharmaceuticals in Basel, Switzerland. At the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies at Albert-Ludwigs Universität in Freiburg, Germany he was an external senior fellow, and in November 2014 was appointed as an honorary professor at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität in Freiburg. Dr. Overall was awarded the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis CIHR Award as 2002 CIHR Scientist of the Year, the UBC Killam Senior Researcher Award (science) in 2005, and was the chair of both the 2003 Matrix Metalloproteinase Gordon Research Conference and the 2010 Protease Gordon Research Conference. He was elected to the HUPO Council and to the executive committee of the Chromosome–Centric Human Proteome Project (CHPP) in 2014. With over 15,571 citations for his 227 papers (since 2000 his papers have been cited more than 11,454 times) and with an h factor of 65 he is a highly influential scientist in the field. Professor Overall is also the pioneer of degradomics, a term he coined. With 23 papers published in Nature Review, Nature Journal, Cell Journal, Science and Science Signaling, he is a leader in the field. This leadership was most recently recognized by the International Society of Proteolysis with a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, by the Matrix Biology Society of Australia and New Zealand with the Barry Preston Award in 2012, by the IADR Distinguished Scientist Award for Research in Oral Biology in 2013; and by the Tony Pawson Canadian National Proteomics Network Award for Outstanding Contribution and Leadership to the Canadian Proteomics Community in 2014. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Proteomics, on the editorial boards of the Journal of Molecular Cellular Proteomics and Biological Chemistry and on the advisory committee of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology.

Charles Sentman
Ph.D.

Professor of microbiology and immuniology and director of the Center for Synthetic Immunity at Dartmouth Medical School

Charles Sentman is a professor in the department of microbiology & immunology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and the director of the Center for Synthetic Immunity. Dr. Sentman’s research interests are natural killer (NK) cell recognition mechanisms, the role of NK cells as a part of the immune defense against cancer and infection, and how NK cell and T-cell effector mechanisms affect the tumor microenvironment. His laboratory is focused on the development of novel immunotherapy strategies for cancer, and there are several major areas of research: chimeric antigen receptor-based immunotherapy, bi-specific engager targeting of tumors, and development of novel signaling platforms for cell-based therapies. Earlier in his career, Dr. Sentman worked as a team leader and section leader at AstraZeneca R&D in Lund, Sweden. Dr. Sentman received a B.S. from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He completed postdoctoral training at Washington University and the Karolinska Institute.

Louis Weiner
M.D.

Professor, Francis L. & Charlotte G. Gragnani chair of oncology, director of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, and director of the MedStar Georgetown Cancer Institute at Georgetown University Medical Center

Dr. Louis Weiner is director of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, one of 49 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated comprehensive cancer centers in the United States. He holds the Francis L. and Charlotte G. Gragnani chair and is professor of oncology and chair of the department of oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center. He also serves as the director of the MedStar Georgetown Cancer Institute, a cancer service line serving patients in the Washington D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan areas. He is responsible for the operation and development of the cancer center, including its research, clinical, and educational missions. The clinical mission includes leading the MedStar-Georgetown Cancer Network in the metropolitan Washington area. Weiner is known for his laboratory and clinical research focusing on new therapeutic approaches that mobilize the patient’s immune system to fight cancer using monoclonal antibodies and other modalities of therapy. His current research focuses on identifying and therapeutically exploiting mechanisms employed by malignant cells to combat immune destruction. Prior to joining Georgetown Lombardi as director in 2008, Weiner served as chairman of the medical oncology department and vice president for translational research at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, PA, and served as professor in the department of medicine at Temple University School of Medicine. He is an active member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and founded the AACR Cancer Immunology Working Group. He has served as chair of the NCI Board of Scientific Counselors for clinical sciences and epidemiology and as a member of the NCI Clinical Trials Advisory Committee (CTAC). He also served on the NCI’s blue ribbon panel working group on immunotherapy for the National Cancer Moonshot Initiative and the Advisory Panel of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Center for Scientific Research (CSR), which administers NIH research grants. He is recipient of the 2019 AACR Distinguished Public Service Award. Weiner earned his bachelor’s degree in biology with honors from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. After completing his internship, residency, and service as chief medical resident at the University of Vermont’s Medical Center Hospital, he held clinical and research fellowships in hematology and oncology at Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston.