Dr. Yao has over 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical industry and a proven track record of progression of small molecules and antibodies from discovery to clinical development. In 2018, Dr. Yao co-founded Teon Therapeutics, a company that focuses on the treatment of cancer by blocking tumor-induced immunosuppression. Prior to Teon, Dr. Yao served as a Senior Director of Biology at Gilead Sciences where she led a team of 30 scientists and contributed to the growth and success of Gilead’s pipeline across several therapeutic areas including inflammation, oncology, fibrotic and cardiovascular metabolic disorders. Dr. Yao supervised the preclinical combination study of Ambrisentan® and Tadalafil (AMBITION trial) that supported the approval of the combination therapy for treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Dr. Yao contributed to the development of Selonsertib, an ASK1 inhibitor for fibrotic diseases (Phase 3). Prior to joining Gilead, Dr. Yao served as Director of Biology at CV Therapeutics where she led ALDH2 biology in developing ANS-6637, an ALDH2 inhibitor that has progressed to Phase 2 clinical trials for drug addiction.

Prior to CV Therapeutics, Dr. Yao held the position of Assistant Professor at University of California San Francisco, Department of Neurology. She studied mechanisms and interactions of G-protein coupled receptors in drug addiction and other CNS diseases. She is an inventor of more than 10 Issued US Patents and has authored/co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.

Dr. Yao received her Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and completed her postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco.

One of Jim’s lifelong goals is to contribute to the cure of cancer. He believes that with the advancement of science and human society, curing cancer will be a reality, in which fear will not be an automatic response when diagnosed with cancer. He also believes Teon Therapeutics is the right team to make a big impact in curing cancer.

Jim has more than 20 years of industry experience. He started his drug research and development career in 1998, joining Tularik, which was acquired by Amgen in 2004. He continued his career at Amgen as a Principle Scientist and led programs across multiple therapeutic areas. He is known as a creative scientist, who knows how to collaborate and advance programs quickly. Among the programs he led and participated, four of them advanced into Phase 1 clinical trials, and one into Phase 2. His success also has much to do with his ability to learn and expand his expertise, since drug R&D requires multidisciplinary knowledge. One example is that he published a highly cited perspective article outside his medical chemistry field in the prestigious Diabetes journal.

In 2014, Jim left Amgen and started his entrepreneurship endeavor. He founded RIFA Pharma, and worked on diabetes program. His RIFA experience taught him how to be an entrepreneur, which led him to recognize the golden opportunity in Teon Therapeutics.

Jim earned his Ph.D. from the University of Rochester and conducted his postdoctoral research at Colorado State University.

Mr. Horne has over 20 years of experience in the life science industry as an executive, entrepreneur and investor. He joined Teon Therapeutics as President and COO in 2019. Previously, Mr. Horne was CEO of Symic Bio starting in 2014. Under his leadership Symic raised over $90M in funding and advanced two first-in-category drugs into phase 2 studies. Both assets have been partnered. Before Symic, Mr. Horne was a founding member of TauTona Group, an early stage life science venture capital fund. At TauTona, Mr. Horne founded Aline Aesthetics, a novel biomaterial company, where he led the company as General Manager until its acquisition by Allergan (AGN) in 2014. He also served as Vice President of Business Development for TauTona portfolio companies, which included acquisitions by LifeCell and Novadaq (NVDQ).

Earlier in his career he worked extensively in cardiovascular research as part of The Foundry, and contributed to the development of Evalve’s MitraClip (acquired by Abbott Vascular). He has over 30 issued patents.

Mr. Horne serves on the Board of Directors of Teon Therapeutics, Symic Bio, AfaSci, and is an advisory Partner at Advantary. He has a B.S. and M.S. degree from Stanford University in mechanical engineering and is a Kauffman Fellow

Dr. Elzein joined Teon Therapeutics in 2018 with over 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical industry and a proven track record of progression of small molecules from hit identification to clinical development. Prior to Teon Therapeutics, Dr. Elzein spent 10 years as a Principal Scientist at Gilead Sciences where he played key roles in the discovery and progression of novel drug candidates in the cardiovascular and oncology therapeutic areas. Prior to Gilead, Dr. Elzein spent 11 years at CV Therapeutics, Inc., serving in roles of increasing responsibility and played key roles in building and advancing a broad portfolio of therapeutic drug candidates from discovery to clinical development. Dr. Elzein has an exceptional track record of scientific achievements; he is an inventor of more than 90 Issued US Patents, and he has authored/co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters. Dr. Elzein contributed to the discovery of 5 development compounds (phase 1-3) and two approved drugs. He discovered Lexiscan®, a selective A2A agonist that was approved in 2008. Dr. Elzein led the medicinal chemistry team that supported the development of Ranexa®, first-in class late sodium current inhibitor for the treatment of chronic stable angina that was approved in 2006. Dr. Elzein was the brain behind the design of Eleclazine, an orally active selective late sodium current inhibitor in phase 3 clinical trials.

Dr. Elzein holds a Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from Duquesne University, School of Pharmacy, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and completed one-year postdoctoral studies at University of Minnesota, School of Pharmacy.

Dr. Robert Sikorski began his engagement with Teon in March 2019. He is serving a strategic role to support the advancement of Teon into clinical development. By providing leadership to build clinical functions that include clinical operations, pharmacovigilance, pharmacokinetics, biostatistics, and regulatory affairs, Dr. Sikorski plays a major role in advancing Teon’s immuno-oncology portfolio.

Dr. Sikorski has 20 years of clinical and industry experience with accomplishments in drug development across pre-IND, early stage, late stage, and post marketing programs. He is currently the Managing Director of Woodside Way Ventures. He has previously served as the Chief Medical Officer in charge of Global Clinical Development at Five Prime Therapeutics, a publicly traded biotechnology company. Prior to this, Dr. Sikorski was as a Senior Director leading Global Oncology Research and Development at MedImmune (the Biologics Division of AstraZeneca, PLC), where his group advanced the clinical development of a portfolio of immuno-oncology drugs. He played a major role in building the early Medimmune/AstraZeneca biologics pipeline and in partnering and acquisition efforts that included OX40, PD1, CTLA4 (tremelimumab), oncolytic virus, cell therapy, and TLR targeting assets. Prior to Medimmune, he served as Director of Global Oncology Research and Development at Amgen, where he led late stage global clinical development and post marketing efforts for oncology products. His seminal work in the development of panitumumab (now marketed as Vectibix®) led to the drug’s approval with a first-in-class companion diagnostic based on KRAS mutations.

Dr. Sikorski began his career as a Howard Hughes Research Fellow and Visiting Scientist at the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus. Dr. Sikorski received an M.D. and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine through a Medical Scientist Training Program scholarship. He completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and an oncology fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Oncology Center and is board eligible in both medical oncology and internal medicine.

Dr. Fan has over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience in drug discovery and development of small molecules. Dr. Fan has an extensive experience in GPCRs research, and he is a strong believer and advocator for targeting GPCRs-mediated metabolic stress in tumor microenvironment as a better approach to fully unleash anti-tumor immune responses to combat cancer. Prior to Teon, Dr. Fan spent 8 years at Gilead Sciences as a Principal Scientist where he led his group to identify novel targets for cancer, inflammation and cardiometabolic diseases. He initiated several GPCR exploratory programs for cancer immunotherapy and contributed to the discovery of a number of clinical candidates including Selonsertib, an ASK1 inhibitors for fibrotic disease that progressed to phase 3 clinical trials. Before joining Gilead, Dr. Fan served as a Senior Scientist at CV Therapeutics where he played key roles in the discovery and development of new therapies for CNS and cardiometabolic diseases including ANS-6637, an ALDH2 inhibitor that has advanced to Phase 2 clinical trials for drug addiction. Dr. Fan is an inventor of more than 6 Issued US Patents and author/co-author of over 30 peer-reviewed papers.

Dr. Fan received his Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from Peking Union Medical College and completed his postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Karaborni joined Teon in 2019 as consulting Head of Drug Development. He is an expert in product and process development of new chemical entities (NCEs) and various dosage forms. Over his 30-year career he served in several senior executive positions including Vice President of Development Operations and Executive Director of Preformulation and Formulation Development at XenoPort Inc. At XenoPort, he led multiple groups active in the areas of chemical, analytical, bioanalytical, formulation development, supply chain and commercial manufacturing. He was Director of Pre-clinical Development Technology, Director of Materials Characterization and Technology Assessment, and Director of Formulation Design and Characterization at Merck Research Labs. In his early career, he was Senior Research Engineer for the Royal Dutch Shell company in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Dr. Karaborni is a member of the advisory board of the Surfactant Science series and inventor of more than 20 US published patents and patent applications. Sami is the (co)author of more than 40 publications in international journals among which Science (Washington), Nature (London), La Recherche Scientifique (Paris) and Mundo Científico (Madrid). He has been a key speaker in several conferences among which Gordon Conferences (USA), Royal Society of Chemistry (Great Britain) and Rencontres de Moriond (Switzerland).

Dr. Lauriault joined Teon has consulting Head of Toxicology in 2020. Dr. Lauriault has over 25 years of toxicology experience working primarily in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. She has been consulting since 2008 for several small and mid-sized clients helping with drug development of small molecules, biologics, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), vaccines, oncolytic viruses and immuno-oncology therapeutics. Her wealth of experience enables her to design strategic toxicology programs from drug discovery and development to NDA filing and approval. The majority of her clients are in the oncology space. She has interacted with regulatory agencies around the world on behalf of her clients, including the FDA, EMA, ASMN, MHRA, BfArm, Swedish Medical Products Agency and Health Canada, to name a few.

Dr. Laurifault was a significant contributor to approval of rucaparib (Clovis Oncology), larotrectinib and selpercatinib (Loxo Oncology).

Steve joined Teon has consulting Head of DMPK in 2019. He has over 35 years of drug development experience, and has been a consultant for large number of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, private equity, and strategic consulting companies in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, China, Japan, and Australia. He has experience with FDA, EMA and other agencies, a wide variety of indications such as oncology, central nervous system, inflammation, pain, virology, respiratory, genitourinary, rare diseases, and technical expertise in drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, bioanalysis, lead optimization, time-dependent inhibition, mechanism of toxicity, prediction of human pharmacokinetics, clinical pharmacology, drug interactions, dose selection for clinical trials, pediatric trials, health authority questions, removing clinical holds, and IND, NDA, CTA, MAA preparation.

Prior to consulting, Steve was head of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics at Roche Palo Alto and head of Nonclinical Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics at UCB Pharma in Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium.

Mr. Feng Deng founded Northern Light Venture Capital (NLVC) in 2005. He currently manages over US$ 4.5 billion with 5 US$ funds and 5 RMB funds. He has led and backed nearly 200 companies, focusing on 4 main sectors: TMT (technology, media and telecom), clean technology, healthcare and consumer. The portfolio companies that Feng invested and manages include APUS, ThunderSoft, Macrosan, Meituan, Baihe, LineKong, ChineseAll, GigaDevice, BGI, China Music, LianLian, Burning Rock Biotech, Hillstone Networks, Spreadtrum, CITIC Pharma, Aerohive Networks, etc.

Prior to NLVC, Feng was a co-founder of NetScreen Technologies, which went public on NASDAQ and was later acquired by Juniper Networks in 2004 for US$ 4.2 billion. Feng is recipient of Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (2002) and CRN Innovator of the Year (2003) awards. He has extensive technical and managerial experiences in computer, communication and data networking industries.

Feng holds BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from Tsinghua University, a MS degree in computer engineering from the University of Southern California, and a MBA degree from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He also holds numerous patents of invention in computer system architecture and IC design.

Feng serves on the Board of Directors of Tsinghua University Foundation, the Director of Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University, the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Tsinghua University, the Chairman of Asia Advisory Board of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, the Advisory Board member of Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), the member of Asia Council of Wharton School, the member of China Council of Harvard GSAS, the member of China Entrepreneur Club, and the member of Founding Council of Future Forum, etc.

Dr. Lange has 22 years experience in academic medicine at Harvard and Washington University, where he served as Chief of Cardiology and Professor of Medicine at Jewish Hospital from 1985-1992 and was one of the first academicians in molecular cardiology.

He founded CV Therapeutics based on this broad field and as Chairman, CEO and Chief Scientific Officer, led the IPO in 1996 and the overall pipeline development and the initiatives for US FDA and European EMEA approval for Ranexa®, a first-in-class late sodium channel blocker and the first anti-anginal drug class approved in 30 years in the US. He also led the approval of Lexiscan®, a first-in-class adenosine A2a receptor agonist for use in myocardial perfusion imaging studies. Dr. Lange oversaw the commercial success of CV Therapeutics and its sale to Gilead in 2009 for $1.4 billion dollars.

As a member of the Board of Trustees at the University of Rochester since 1998 and as Chair of the Health Affairs committee that oversees all of the medical operations for five years, Dr. Lange has been part of the leadership team for strategic re-invigoration of the medical center with construction of two research buildings and recruitment of over 100 faculty members. As a member of BIO Board of Directors (the trade organization of biotech companies) from 1999 to 2009, Dr. Lange led the largest committee of member companies for two years and was picked as one of two biotech executives to attend the ceremonies at the White House for the signing of the Bioterrorism bill in 2004. Dr. Lange has been on numerous other public and private Boards in both the non-profit and for-profit arena.

Dr. Lange has a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Rochester, an M.D. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry, also from Harvard University.

Dr. Yao has over 20 years of experience in pharmaceutical industry and a proven track record of progression of small molecules and antibodies from discovery to clinical development. In 2018, Dr. Yao co-founded Teon Therapeutics, a company that focuses on the treatment of cancer by blocking tumor-induced immunosuppression. Prior to Teon, Dr. Yao served as a Senior Director of Biology at Gilead Sciences where she led a team of 30 scientists and contributed to the growth and success of Gilead’s pipeline across several therapeutic areas including inflammation, oncology, fibrotic and cardiovascular metabolic disorders. Dr. Yao supervised the preclinical combination study of Ambrisentan® and Tadalafil (AMBITION trial) that supported the approval of the combination therapy for treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension. Dr. Yao contributed to the development of Selonsertib, an ASK1 inhibitor for fibrotic diseases (Phase 3). Prior to joining Gilead, Dr. Yao served as Director of Biology at CV Therapeutics where she led ALDH2 biology in developing ANS-6637, an ALDH2 inhibitor that has progressed to Phase 2 clinical trials for drug addiction.

Prior to CV Therapeutics, Dr. Yao held the position of Assistant Professor at University of California San Francisco, Department of Neurology. She studied mechanisms and interactions of G-protein coupled receptors in drug addiction and other CNS diseases. She is an inventor of more than 10 Issued US Patents and has authored/co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters.

Dr. Yao received her Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from Huazhong University of Science and Technology and completed her postdoctoral research at the University of California San Francisco.

Mr. Horne has over 20 years of experience in the life science industry as an executive, entrepreneur and investor. He joined Teon Therapeutics as President and COO in 2019. Previously, Mr. Horne was CEO of Symic Bio starting in 2014. Under his leadership Symic raised over $90M in funding and advanced two first-in-category drugs into phase 2 studies. Both assets have been partnered. Before Symic, Mr. Horne was a founding member of TauTona Group, an early stage life science venture capital fund. At TauTona, Mr. Horne founded Aline Aesthetics, a novel biomaterial company, where he led the company as General Manager until its acquisition by Allergan (AGN) in 2014. He also served as Vice President of Business Development for TauTona portfolio companies, which included acquisitions by LifeCell and Novadaq (NVDQ).

Earlier in his career he worked extensively in cardiovascular research as part of The Foundry, and contributed to the development of Evalve’s MitraClip (acquired by Abbott Vascular). He has over 30 issued patents.

Mr. Horne serves on the Board of Directors of Teon Therapeutics, Symic Bio, AfaSci, and is an advisory Partner at Advantary. He has a B.S. and M.S. degree from Stanford University in mechanical engineering and is a Kauffman Fellow

Dr. Small is Professor of Medicine at UCSF (University of California, San Francisco). He holds a number of leadership roles, serving as Leader of the UCSF Prostate Cancer Program, and as Deputy Director of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has served as Chief of the Division of Hematology and Oncology for 10 years, and most recently he has assumed the position of Chief Scientific Officer in the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. Nationally, he serves on the ASCO Board of Directors, and chairs a number of External Advisory Boards for other Cancer Centers.

Dr. Small’s research interests lie in clinical and translational research in advanced prostate cancer, including trial design, and development of novel agents. He piloted the early trials targeting the androgen receptor in advanced prostate cancer, developing ketoconazole and contributing to an understanding of its mechanisms of activity and resistance. Subsequently Eric was centrally involved with the development of two novel androgen signaling inhibitors, abiraterone acetate and apalutamide, from first in human studies to FDA approval.

Dr. Small has also been involved in the early application of immunotherapy to prostate cancer, developing sipuleucel T from first in human studies through FDA approval, and undertaking the first in human testing of ipilimumab, the first immune check point inhibitor to be clinically developed.

Dr. Dornan is Senior Vice President and Head of Research at Bolt Biotherapeutics. Prior to Bolt, Dr. Dornan was Head of Oncology Research at Gilead and was dedicated to identifying and developing anti-cancer therapeutics for PD-1-refractory patients and cancer driver targeted therapies. Before that, he spent 10 years at Genentech serving in roles of increasing responsibility and played key roles in target discovery and validation. Dr. Dornan received his Ph.D. from the University of Dundee, UK.

Dr. Blackburn is Chief Development Officer and Founder at Amygdala Neurosciences. Previously he was Founder and CEO at Rapidscan Pharma Solutions and SVP R&D at CV Therapeutics. Dr. Blackburn successfully oversaw the development and commercialization of Lexiscan and Ranexa and helped place seven products into clinical development for multiple indications. He was in charge of every facet of the development of drugs at CV Therapeutics, including launching Lexiscan and Ranexa. He received his Ph.D from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Diamond is Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at University of California, San Francisco, and Founding Director at Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center. Dr. Diamond is a world-renowned GPCR expert and experienced in drug development for adenosine receptor inhibitors for Parkinson’s disease, addiction and prostate cancer. Dr. Diamond was Senior Advisor at Gilead Sciences. He received an M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.