Hummingbird Bioscience is a clinical-stage biotech company founded in 2015 by a team of interdisciplinary scientists with a shared belief that there was a better way to deliver a new generation of transformative medicines.
At Hummingbird, we harness powerful modern approaches to systems biology and data science to better understand disease mechanisms and how to treat these, through the development of rationally engineered bio-therapeutics.
We are advancing a rich pipeline of first and best-in-class drug candidates in oncology, autoimmune and infectious diseases, in collaboration with global partners in academia and industry.
With operations in Singapore and the US, we have strong internal capabilities spanning antibody discovery, pharmacology and production, to clinical and business development.
Together we aim to accelerate the journey of new drugs from concept to clinical care.
Piers Ingram, PhD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Piers Ingram is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. Seeing the exciting progress in systems biology and immunology over the last decade, Piers co-founded Hummingbird Bioscience in 2015 in order to apply these advances to drug discovery and development.
Biography
Prior to co-founding Hummingbird, Piers spent 15 years in the biopharmaceutical industry across various disciplines from academic research to R&D consulting and commercial strategy. He obtained his PhD in Systems Biology at Imperial College London, funded by the Wellcome Trust, kickstarting a?career in academia where he held several roles including as a research group leader at Imperial College London. He then moved to biopharma R&D consulting and commercial strategy roles at Sanofi, an international pharmaceutical company. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.
John Conolly, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
Focus
Immune monitoring and immunometabolism
Biography
John Connolly, PhD, is a senior principal investigator and director for translational immunology at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IMCB) A*Star. He is also the chief scientific officer (CSO) at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
He previously served as CSO of Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell therapy company focused on solid tumor immunotherapy, where he led a team of researchers to develop next-generation T cell therapy treatments. Dr. Connolly is also an associate professor at National University of Singapore and an adjunct associate professor of Immunology at Baylor University, where he served on the Board of Governors for the Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Dr. Connolly has more than 20 years of research experience in immunotherapy and has published more than 100 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals. As a human immunologist, his research interests focus on immune monitoring and immunometabolism. He received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Dartmouth Medical School, where he studied human dendritic cell biology.
Jianzhu Chen, PhD
Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT
Focus
Cancer Immunology
Biography
Jianzhu Chen, PhD is Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was the lead Principle Investigator of the Infectious Disease Interdisciplinary Research Group of Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). Dr Chen's research seeks fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Recently, his research activity has focused on T cells and macrophages in immunity and diseases and cancer immunotherapy.
Wei Yang, PhD
Director of Target Discovery at Institute for Protein Innovation, Harvard University
Focus
Target Discovery
Biography
Wei Yang, PhD?is Director of Target Discovery at the Institute for Protein Innovation at Harvard University. Previously, Wei Yang served as Director of Molecular Biology at Novo Nordisk Research Centre China. He led an international team that successfully produced and screened for interactions between all human secreted proteins and single transmembrane cell surface proteins. This receptor-ligand de-orphaning effort identified the previously unknown receptors for GDF15 and VISTA, which are novel therapeutic targets for obesity and cancer, respectively. Dr Yang received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Jilin University and a PhD. from Peking University.
Padmanee Sharma, M.D. PhD
Professor of Medical Oncology,The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Focus
Mechanisms and pathways within the immune system which are responsible for tumor rejection and clinical benefit; development of novel immunotherapy strategies for cancer treatment
?Biography
Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, is a leading cancer immunotherapy ?scientist. Dr. Sharma currently serves as co-director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immumotherapy and as Professor in the departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. A co-founder of Jounce Therapeutics, she is a medical oncologist and immunologist, and is the principal investigator of several immunotherapy clinical trials, which allow her to investigate immune responses and pathways critical for eliciting anti-tumor responses which provide clinical benefit in cancer patients.
Guy Heathers, PhD, MBA
VP, Business Development
Focus
Guy Heathers is responsible for the business development activities of the company, particularly helping to integrate the intellectual property activities to align with business development objectives to maximize the company?s value.
Biography
Guy has over 30 year?s work experience in the pharma/biotech/tech transfer environment. Initially working at Hoffman La Roche in the drug discovery division, he worked?for Cancer Research Technology, helping to create a number of early stage spin outs including Cyclacel, Kudos, Crusade, CRV. Moving to Singapore in 2000, he created Biotech Research Ventures, a joint venture between CRT, NCCS and Temasek, which?in turn helped to spin out 4 early stage Biotech companies. In Australia, he joined Gateway Capital as CEO to assist early stage biotech companies to list on the ASX. He was also instrumental in setting up Cancer Therapeutics, which received over AUD 100 million in funding over a 14 year period and creating two high profile pharma therapeutics. He worked as the interim CEO for Amaranth Medical and a consultant for NCCS and SingHealth,?responsible for a number of commercial collaborations as well as the creation of Enleofen Bio. More recently, he spent 5 years with Tessa Therapeutics.?He holds a Bachelor's degree from Leeds University, a PhD from Bath University and an MBA from Farleigh Dickenson University in New Jersey.
James P. Allison, PhD
2018 Nobel Laureate in Medicine
Focus
Mechanisms of T cell development and activation; development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy
?Biography
Prof. James P. Allison serves as chair of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Department of Immunology. Dr. Allison has a longstanding interest in mechanisms of T cell development and activation, the development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy. His research led to the development of ipilimumab, which was approved in 2011 by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.? Most recently, Dr. Allison was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Dr. Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.
Eric Rowinsky, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Focus
Dr. Eric Rowinsky is the Chief Medical Officer (Consultant) at Hummingbird Bioscience, focusing on the clinical and registrational strategies of anticancer therapeutics.
?Biography
Dr. Rowinsky is a practicing clinical oncologist and veteran clinical drug developer in the oncologics and biotherapeutics space. He led the Food and Drug Administration approval of Erbitux? for head and neck and colorectal cancers and advanced eight other biological therapeutics through clinical development during his time at ImClone.
?
Prior to joining ImClone in 2005, Dr. Rowinsky was a longstanding NCI principal investigator on anticancer drug development grants and integrally involved in pivotal clinical and preclinical investigations which lead to the development of both classical chemotherapeutics and targeted therapies, including a wide variety of cytotoxic and targeted anticancer therapeutics.
?
He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Biogen Idec Inc., Fortress Bio, Verastem, Biophytis, Rgenix and sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several other leading Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies.
?
He is a distinguished thought leader in the field of oncology with over 300 manuscripts in both the preclinical and clinical research field and holds the position of Editor-in-Chief of?Investigational New Drugs, an Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member of Cancer Research (Associate Editor and Reviews Editor),?Clinical Cancer Research, Annals of Oncology, Cancer Biology and Therapy and several other oncology journals.
?
He is an adjunct Professor at New York University School of Medicine.
Konrad Paszkiewicz, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
Focus
Konrad Paszkiewicz is the Chief Technology Officer of Hummingbird Bioscience and leads Hummingbird's internal platform technologies, including mAbPredict, omics-technologies, single-cell analysis, machine learning and infrastructure.
Biography
Konrad has held several academic positions including Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Biomedical Informatics and the Genomics facility at the University of Exeter, UK.
Konrad's background is a blend of structural bioinformatics, genomics and data science. He is an author on over 45 peer reviewed publications and an organizer and speaker at several renowned scientific workshops and seminar series. He holds an MSci in Physics and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Imperial College, London.
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. He is responsible for overseeing the development of new technologies and intellectual property, designing experimental strategies for drug discovery, leading the development and testing of novel therapeutics, and overseeing the drug pipeline.
Biography
Jerome is a molecular systems biologist by background with extensive experience at the interface of computational and wet lab biology, and a career research focus of applying systems biology approaches to tackling human disease. Before co-founding Hummingbird Bioscience in 2014, he was an academic at top institutions in the UK and China.
He holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Cambridge University.
Miemie Strydom, MBA
VP, Finance and Shared Services
Focus
Miemie Strydom oversees and manages the day-to-day activities cross-functionally for all corporate divisions and workstreams including Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Compliance, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and Fundraising/Transactions.
Biography
A medical scientist by training, Miemie brings more than 13 years of commercial, strategy and investment advisory experience in the Lifesciences and Healthcare industry. She has held both in-house as well as advisory positions, making her uniquely appreciative of the workings of the industry?s ecosystem and how corporate functions are best suited to help realise ground-breaking science and return on investment. Prior to Hummingbird, she has advised on over 100 product development- and launch strategies for leading global pharmaceutical players as Strategy Consultant with IQVIA (UK, Singapore). She also has strong M&A, IPO and financing transactions experience with Deutsche Bank Healthcare Investment Banking, and Davita International where she drove high priority International Finance, M&A and business development initiatives to facilitate sustainable and?profitable growth and expansion outside of the US.
She holds an MBA from London Business School, UK (2016), a post-graduate Diploma in Business Management Studies and a Bachelor?s degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Pretoria, South Africa (2005).
Founders
Piers Ingram, PhD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Piers Ingram, PhD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Piers Ingram is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. Seeing the exciting progress in systems biology and immunology over the last decade, Piers co-founded Hummingbird Bioscience in 2015 in order to apply these advances to drug discovery and development.
Biography
Prior to co-founding Hummingbird, Piers spent 15 years in the biopharmaceutical industry across various disciplines from academic research to R&D consulting and commercial strategy. He obtained his PhD in Systems Biology at Imperial College London, funded by the Wellcome Trust, kickstarting a?career in academia where he held several roles including as a research group leader at Imperial College London. He then moved to biopharma R&D consulting and commercial strategy roles at Sanofi, an international pharmaceutical company. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. He is responsible for overseeing the development of new technologies and intellectual property, designing experimental strategies for drug discovery, leading the development and testing of novel therapeutics, and overseeing the drug pipeline.
Biography
Jerome is a molecular systems biologist by background with extensive experience at the interface of computational and wet lab biology, and a career research focus of applying systems biology approaches to tackling human disease. Before co-founding Hummingbird Bioscience in 2014, he was an academic at top institutions in the UK and China.
He holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Cambridge University.
Piers Ingram, PhD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Piers Ingram, PhD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Piers Ingram is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. Seeing the exciting progress in systems biology and immunology over the last decade, Piers co-founded Hummingbird Bioscience in 2015 in order to apply these advances to drug discovery and development.
Biography
Prior to co-founding Hummingbird, Piers spent 15 years in the biopharmaceutical industry across various disciplines from academic research to R&D consulting and commercial strategy. He obtained his PhD in Systems Biology at Imperial College London, funded by the Wellcome Trust, kickstarting a?career in academia where he held several roles including as a research group leader at Imperial College London. He then moved to biopharma R&D consulting and commercial strategy roles at Sanofi, an international pharmaceutical company. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. He is responsible for overseeing the development of new technologies and intellectual property, designing experimental strategies for drug discovery, leading the development and testing of novel therapeutics, and overseeing the drug pipeline.
Biography
Jerome is a molecular systems biologist by background with extensive experience at the interface of computational and wet lab biology, and a career research focus of applying systems biology approaches to tackling human disease. Before co-founding Hummingbird Bioscience in 2014, he was an academic at top institutions in the UK and China.
He holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Cambridge University.
Senior Management Team
Eric Rowinsky, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Eric Rowinsky, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Focus
Dr. Eric Rowinsky is the Chief Medical Officer (Consultant) at Hummingbird Bioscience, focusing on the clinical and registrational strategies of anticancer therapeutics.
?Biography
Dr. Rowinsky is a practicing clinical oncologist and veteran clinical drug developer in the oncologics and biotherapeutics space. He led the Food and Drug Administration approval of Erbitux? for head and neck and colorectal cancers and advanced eight other biological therapeutics through clinical development during his time at ImClone.
?
Prior to joining ImClone in 2005, Dr. Rowinsky was a longstanding NCI principal investigator on anticancer drug development grants and integrally involved in pivotal clinical and preclinical investigations which lead to the development of both classical chemotherapeutics and targeted therapies, including a wide variety of cytotoxic and targeted anticancer therapeutics.
?
He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Biogen Idec Inc., Fortress Bio, Verastem, Biophytis, Rgenix and sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several other leading Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies.
?
He is a distinguished thought leader in the field of oncology with over 300 manuscripts in both the preclinical and clinical research field and holds the position of Editor-in-Chief of?Investigational New Drugs, an Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member of Cancer Research (Associate Editor and Reviews Editor),?Clinical Cancer Research, Annals of Oncology, Cancer Biology and Therapy and several other oncology journals.
?
He is an adjunct Professor at New York University School of Medicine.
Konrad Paszkiewicz, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
Konrad Paszkiewicz, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
Focus
Konrad Paszkiewicz is the Chief Technology Officer of Hummingbird Bioscience and leads Hummingbird's internal platform technologies, including mAbPredict, omics-technologies, single-cell analysis, machine learning and infrastructure.
Biography
Konrad has held several academic positions including Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Biomedical Informatics and the Genomics facility at the University of Exeter, UK.
Konrad's background is a blend of structural bioinformatics, genomics and data science. He is an author on over 45 peer reviewed publications and an organizer and speaker at several renowned scientific workshops and seminar series. He holds an MSci in Physics and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Imperial College, London.
Miemie Strydom, MBA
VP, Finance and Shared Services
Miemie Strydom, MBA
VP, Finance and Shared Services
Focus
Miemie Strydom oversees and manages the day-to-day activities cross-functionally for all corporate divisions and workstreams including Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Compliance, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and Fundraising/Transactions.
Biography
A medical scientist by training, Miemie brings more than 13 years of commercial, strategy and investment advisory experience in the Lifesciences and Healthcare industry. She has held both in-house as well as advisory positions, making her uniquely appreciative of the workings of the industry?s ecosystem and how corporate functions are best suited to help realise ground-breaking science and return on investment. Prior to Hummingbird, she has advised on over 100 product development- and launch strategies for leading global pharmaceutical players as Strategy Consultant with IQVIA (UK, Singapore). She also has strong M&A, IPO and financing transactions experience with Deutsche Bank Healthcare Investment Banking, and Davita International where she drove high priority International Finance, M&A and business development initiatives to facilitate sustainable and?profitable growth and expansion outside of the US.
She holds an MBA from London Business School, UK (2016), a post-graduate Diploma in Business Management Studies and a Bachelor?s degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Pretoria, South Africa (2005).
Guy Heathers, PhD, MBA
VP, Business Development
Guy Heathers, PhD, MBA
VP, Business Development
Focus
Guy Heathers is responsible for the business development activities of the company, particularly helping to integrate the intellectual property activities to align with business development objectives to maximize the company?s value.
Biography
Guy has over 30 year?s work experience in the pharma/biotech/tech transfer environment. Initially working at Hoffman La Roche in the drug discovery division, he worked?for Cancer Research Technology, helping to create a number of early stage spin outs including Cyclacel, Kudos, Crusade, CRV. Moving to Singapore in 2000, he created Biotech Research Ventures, a joint venture between CRT, NCCS and Temasek, which?in turn helped to spin out 4 early stage Biotech companies. In Australia, he joined Gateway Capital as CEO to assist early stage biotech companies to list on the ASX. He was also instrumental in setting up Cancer Therapeutics, which received over AUD 100 million in funding over a 14 year period and creating two high profile pharma therapeutics. He worked as the interim CEO for Amaranth Medical and a consultant for NCCS and SingHealth,?responsible for a number of commercial collaborations as well as the creation of Enleofen Bio. More recently, he spent 5 years with Tessa Therapeutics.?He holds a Bachelor's degree from Leeds University, a PhD from Bath University and an MBA from Farleigh Dickenson University in New Jersey.
Eric Rowinsky, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Eric Rowinsky, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Focus
Dr. Eric Rowinsky is the Chief Medical Officer (Consultant) at Hummingbird Bioscience, focusing on the clinical and registrational strategies of anticancer therapeutics.
?Biography
Dr. Rowinsky is a practicing clinical oncologist and veteran clinical drug developer in the oncologics and biotherapeutics space. He led the Food and Drug Administration approval of Erbitux? for head and neck and colorectal cancers and advanced eight other biological therapeutics through clinical development during his time at ImClone.
?
Prior to joining ImClone in 2005, Dr. Rowinsky was a longstanding NCI principal investigator on anticancer drug development grants and integrally involved in pivotal clinical and preclinical investigations which lead to the development of both classical chemotherapeutics and targeted therapies, including a wide variety of cytotoxic and targeted anticancer therapeutics.
?
He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Biogen Idec Inc., Fortress Bio, Verastem, Biophytis, Rgenix and sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several other leading Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies.
?
He is a distinguished thought leader in the field of oncology with over 300 manuscripts in both the preclinical and clinical research field and holds the position of Editor-in-Chief of?Investigational New Drugs, an Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member of Cancer Research (Associate Editor and Reviews Editor),?Clinical Cancer Research, Annals of Oncology, Cancer Biology and Therapy and several other oncology journals.
?
He is an adjunct Professor at New York University School of Medicine.
Konrad Paszkiewicz, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
Konrad Paszkiewicz, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
Focus
Konrad Paszkiewicz is the Chief Technology Officer of Hummingbird Bioscience and leads Hummingbird's internal platform technologies, including mAbPredict, omics-technologies, single-cell analysis, machine learning and infrastructure.
Biography
Konrad has held several academic positions including Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Biomedical Informatics and the Genomics facility at the University of Exeter, UK.
Konrad's background is a blend of structural bioinformatics, genomics and data science. He is an author on over 45 peer reviewed publications and an organizer and speaker at several renowned scientific workshops and seminar series. He holds an MSci in Physics and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Imperial College, London.
Miemie Strydom, MBA
VP, Finance and Shared Services
Miemie Strydom, MBA
VP, Finance and Shared Services
Focus
Miemie Strydom oversees and manages the day-to-day activities cross-functionally for all corporate divisions and workstreams including Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Compliance, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and Fundraising/Transactions.
Biography
A medical scientist by training, Miemie brings more than 13 years of commercial, strategy and investment advisory experience in the Lifesciences and Healthcare industry. She has held both in-house as well as advisory positions, making her uniquely appreciative of the workings of the industry?s ecosystem and how corporate functions are best suited to help realise ground-breaking science and return on investment. Prior to Hummingbird, she has advised on over 100 product development- and launch strategies for leading global pharmaceutical players as Strategy Consultant with IQVIA (UK, Singapore). She also has strong M&A, IPO and financing transactions experience with Deutsche Bank Healthcare Investment Banking, and Davita International where she drove high priority International Finance, M&A and business development initiatives to facilitate sustainable and?profitable growth and expansion outside of the US.
She holds an MBA from London Business School, UK (2016), a post-graduate Diploma in Business Management Studies and a Bachelor?s degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Pretoria, South Africa (2005).
Guy Heathers, PhD, MBA
VP, Business Development
Guy Heathers, PhD, MBA
VP, Business Development
Focus
Guy Heathers is responsible for the business development activities of the company, particularly helping to integrate the intellectual property activities to align with business development objectives to maximize the company?s value.
Biography
Guy has over 30 year?s work experience in the pharma/biotech/tech transfer environment. Initially working at Hoffman La Roche in the drug discovery division, he worked?for Cancer Research Technology, helping to create a number of early stage spin outs including Cyclacel, Kudos, Crusade, CRV. Moving to Singapore in 2000, he created Biotech Research Ventures, a joint venture between CRT, NCCS and Temasek, which?in turn helped to spin out 4 early stage Biotech companies. In Australia, he joined Gateway Capital as CEO to assist early stage biotech companies to list on the ASX. He was also instrumental in setting up Cancer Therapeutics, which received over AUD 100 million in funding over a 14 year period and creating two high profile pharma therapeutics. He worked as the interim CEO for Amaranth Medical and a consultant for NCCS and SingHealth,?responsible for a number of commercial collaborations as well as the creation of Enleofen Bio. More recently, he spent 5 years with Tessa Therapeutics.?He holds a Bachelor's degree from Leeds University, a PhD from Bath University and an MBA from Farleigh Dickenson University in New Jersey.
Scientific Advisory Board
James P. Allison, PhD
2018 Nobel Laureate in Medicine
James P. Allison, PhD
2018 Nobel Laureate in Medicine
Focus
Mechanisms of T cell development and activation; development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy
?Biography
Prof. James P. Allison serves as chair of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Department of Immunology. Dr. Allison has a longstanding interest in mechanisms of T cell development and activation, the development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy. His research led to the development of ipilimumab, which was approved in 2011 by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.? Most recently, Dr. Allison was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Dr. Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.
Padmanee Sharma, M.D. PhD
Professor of Medical Oncology,The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Padmanee Sharma, M.D. PhD
Professor of Medical Oncology,The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Focus
Mechanisms and pathways within the immune system which are responsible for tumor rejection and clinical benefit; development of novel immunotherapy strategies for cancer treatment
?Biography
Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, is a leading cancer immunotherapy ?scientist. Dr. Sharma currently serves as co-director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immumotherapy and as Professor in the departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. A co-founder of Jounce Therapeutics, she is a medical oncologist and immunologist, and is the principal investigator of several immunotherapy clinical trials, which allow her to investigate immune responses and pathways critical for eliciting anti-tumor responses which provide clinical benefit in cancer patients.
John Conolly, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
John Conolly, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
Focus
Immune monitoring and immunometabolism
Biography
John Connolly, PhD, is a senior principal investigator and director for translational immunology at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IMCB) A*Star. He is also the chief scientific officer (CSO) at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
He previously served as CSO of Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell therapy company focused on solid tumor immunotherapy, where he led a team of researchers to develop next-generation T cell therapy treatments. Dr. Connolly is also an associate professor at National University of Singapore and an adjunct associate professor of Immunology at Baylor University, where he served on the Board of Governors for the Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Dr. Connolly has more than 20 years of research experience in immunotherapy and has published more than 100 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals. As a human immunologist, his research interests focus on immune monitoring and immunometabolism. He received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Dartmouth Medical School, where he studied human dendritic cell biology.
Jianzhu Chen, PhD
Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT
Jianzhu Chen, PhD
Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT
Focus
Cancer Immunology
Biography
Jianzhu Chen, PhD is Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was the lead Principle Investigator of the Infectious Disease Interdisciplinary Research Group of Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). Dr Chen's research seeks fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Recently, his research activity has focused on T cells and macrophages in immunity and diseases and cancer immunotherapy.
Wei Yang, PhD
Director of Target Discovery at Institute for Protein Innovation, Harvard University
Wei Yang, PhD
Director of Target Discovery at Institute for Protein Innovation, Harvard University
Focus
Target Discovery
Biography
Wei Yang, PhD?is Director of Target Discovery at the Institute for Protein Innovation at Harvard University. Previously, Wei Yang served as Director of Molecular Biology at Novo Nordisk Research Centre China. He led an international team that successfully produced and screened for interactions between all human secreted proteins and single transmembrane cell surface proteins. This receptor-ligand de-orphaning effort identified the previously unknown receptors for GDF15 and VISTA, which are novel therapeutic targets for obesity and cancer, respectively. Dr Yang received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Jilin University and a PhD. from Peking University.
James P. Allison, PhD
2018 Nobel Laureate in Medicine
James P. Allison, PhD
2018 Nobel Laureate in Medicine
Focus
Mechanisms of T cell development and activation; development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy
?Biography
Prof. James P. Allison serves as chair of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Department of Immunology. Dr. Allison has a longstanding interest in mechanisms of T cell development and activation, the development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy. His research led to the development of ipilimumab, which was approved in 2011 by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic melanoma.? Most recently, Dr. Allison was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Dr. Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.
Padmanee Sharma, M.D. PhD
Professor of Medical Oncology,The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Padmanee Sharma, M.D. PhD
Professor of Medical Oncology,The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Focus
Mechanisms and pathways within the immune system which are responsible for tumor rejection and clinical benefit; development of novel immunotherapy strategies for cancer treatment
?Biography
Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, is a leading cancer immunotherapy ?scientist. Dr. Sharma currently serves as co-director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immumotherapy and as Professor in the departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. A co-founder of Jounce Therapeutics, she is a medical oncologist and immunologist, and is the principal investigator of several immunotherapy clinical trials, which allow her to investigate immune responses and pathways critical for eliciting anti-tumor responses which provide clinical benefit in cancer patients.
John Conolly, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
John Conolly, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
Focus
Immune monitoring and immunometabolism
Biography
John Connolly, PhD, is a senior principal investigator and director for translational immunology at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IMCB) A*Star. He is also the chief scientific officer (CSO) at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
He previously served as CSO of Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell therapy company focused on solid tumor immunotherapy, where he led a team of researchers to develop next-generation T cell therapy treatments. Dr. Connolly is also an associate professor at National University of Singapore and an adjunct associate professor of Immunology at Baylor University, where he served on the Board of Governors for the Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Dr. Connolly has more than 20 years of research experience in immunotherapy and has published more than 100 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals. As a human immunologist, his research interests focus on immune monitoring and immunometabolism. He received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Dartmouth Medical School, where he studied human dendritic cell biology.
Jianzhu Chen, PhD
Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT
Jianzhu Chen, PhD
Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT
Focus
Cancer Immunology
Biography
Jianzhu Chen, PhD is Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was the lead Principle Investigator of the Infectious Disease Interdisciplinary Research Group of Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). Dr Chen's research seeks fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Recently, his research activity has focused on T cells and macrophages in immunity and diseases and cancer immunotherapy.
Wei Yang, PhD
Director of Target Discovery at Institute for Protein Innovation, Harvard University
Wei Yang, PhD
Director of Target Discovery at Institute for Protein Innovation, Harvard University
Focus
Target Discovery
Biography
Wei Yang, PhD?is Director of Target Discovery at the Institute for Protein Innovation at Harvard University. Previously, Wei Yang served as Director of Molecular Biology at Novo Nordisk Research Centre China. He led an international team that successfully produced and screened for interactions between all human secreted proteins and single transmembrane cell surface proteins. This receptor-ligand de-orphaning effort identified the previously unknown receptors for GDF15 and VISTA, which are novel therapeutic targets for obesity and cancer, respectively. Dr Yang received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Jilin University and a PhD. from Peking University.
Non-Executive Directors
Chik Wai Chiew, MBA
CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management
Chik Wai Chiew, MBA
CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management
Biography
Chik Wai Chiew?is the CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management. He has more than 20 years of experience in global investment management and strategic business development, having been active in leading various companies on transformational growth strategies, fund raising and M&A. He initiated Heritas Venture Fund in 2017 which has since invested in digital health, insuretech, diagnostics, and health foodtech etc. Wai Chiew was awarded the Glaxo-EDB scholarship and holds a BA in Economics from Cambridge University, UK; MA from Yale University, USA; and completed his EMBA at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, China.
Victor E. Tong, MBA
Partner at Decheng Capital
Victor E. Tong, MBA
Partner at Decheng Capital
Biography
Victor E. Tong?is a partner at Decheng Capital focusing on investments in biotechnology and medical technology companies in the US and China.?He has served on the boards of over ten successful Decheng backed companies leading to numerous aquisitions and IPOs. Prior to joining Decheng, Victor was a Principal at Bay City Capital and was a member of the founding team of Nevro. He was also an investment banker with Morgan Stanley advising healthcare companies on IPOs and specialized in strategic advisory work. Victor is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business.
Jonggil Choi
Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings
Jonggil Choi
Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings
Biography
Jonggil Choi is a Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings. In his role, he oversees M&A and investments focusing on next generation biotech initiatives. ?Jonggil has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He started his career as a researcher at Group?s subsidiary, SK Biopharm, before moving into a role in corporate strategy development. He holds a M.S. in Biochemical engineering and a B.S. in Life Science from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Minsop Song, MBA
Director of GNTECH Venture Capital
Minsop Song, MBA
Director of GNTECH Venture Capital
Biography
Minsop Song is Director of GNTECH Venture Capital where he focuses on investing in biotechnology companies. Prior to joining GNTECH, he was Senior Associate at M-Venture Investment focusing on investments in therapeutics, diagnostics companies. He started his career at SK Biopharmaceuticals and Lifescience Division of SK Holdings. He holds a Bachelor?s degree in Chemistry from Sogang University. He also holds an MBA from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) College of Business.
Ahryon Cho, PhD
Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment
Ahryon Cho, PhD
Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment
Biography
Dr. Cho is Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment, the venture capital arm of Korea-based Mirae Asset Financial Group, a leading financial services group in Asia. She has completed multiple equity investments in companies developing innovative therapeutics and diagnostics.?Previously, Dr. Cho was a research assistant professor at Yonsei University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.?She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Neuroscience at Princeton University, NJ, USA, and completed her post-doctoral training in Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA.
Chik Wai Chiew, MBA
CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management
Chik Wai Chiew, MBA
CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management
Biography
Chik Wai Chiew?is the CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management. He has more than 20 years of experience in global investment management and strategic business development, having been active in leading various companies on transformational growth strategies, fund raising and M&A. He initiated Heritas Venture Fund in 2017 which has since invested in digital health, insuretech, diagnostics, and health foodtech etc. Wai Chiew was awarded the Glaxo-EDB scholarship and holds a BA in Economics from Cambridge University, UK; MA from Yale University, USA; and completed his EMBA at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, China.
Victor E. Tong, MBA
Partner at Decheng Capital
Victor E. Tong, MBA
Partner at Decheng Capital
Biography
Victor E. Tong?is a partner at Decheng Capital focusing on investments in biotechnology and medical technology companies in the US and China.?He has served on the boards of over ten successful Decheng backed companies leading to numerous aquisitions and IPOs. Prior to joining Decheng, Victor was a Principal at Bay City Capital and was a member of the founding team of Nevro. He was also an investment banker with Morgan Stanley advising healthcare companies on IPOs and specialized in strategic advisory work. Victor is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business.
Jonggil Choi
Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings
Jonggil Choi
Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings
Biography
Jonggil Choi is a Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings. In his role, he oversees M&A and investments focusing on next generation biotech initiatives. ?Jonggil has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He started his career as a researcher at Group?s subsidiary, SK Biopharm, before moving into a role in corporate strategy development. He holds a M.S. in Biochemical engineering and a B.S. in Life Science from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Minsop Song, MBA
Director of GNTECH Venture Capital
Minsop Song, MBA
Director of GNTECH Venture Capital
Biography
Minsop Song is Director of GNTECH Venture Capital where he focuses on investing in biotechnology companies. Prior to joining GNTECH, he was Senior Associate at M-Venture Investment focusing on investments in therapeutics, diagnostics companies. He started his career at SK Biopharmaceuticals and Lifescience Division of SK Holdings. He holds a Bachelor?s degree in Chemistry from Sogang University. He also holds an MBA from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) College of Business.
Ahryon Cho, PhD
Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment
Ahryon Cho, PhD
Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment
Biography
Dr. Cho is Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment, the venture capital arm of Korea-based Mirae Asset Financial Group, a leading financial services group in Asia. She has completed multiple equity investments in companies developing innovative therapeutics and diagnostics.?Previously, Dr. Cho was a research assistant professor at Yonsei University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea.?She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Neuroscience at Princeton University, NJ, USA, and completed her post-doctoral training in Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA.
Hear From Our Team
Fabien Decaillot, PhD
Head of Antibody Discovery
I get to bring my experience to exciting ventures in the field of the molecular design of biologics. I believe that Hummingbird is at the cutting-edge of delivering a new way of drug discovery and I am excited to be a part of this creation process.
Michelle Su
Lab Operations Director
My job is to ensure that Hummingbird’s lab workflow and practices are set at high industry standards, and that we are operating at our best. I am glad to be part of our world-class team at Hummingbird; every day brings fresh challenges in a very fast-paced environment.
Piers Ingram, PhD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Piers Ingram is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. Seeing the exciting progress in systems biology and immunology over the last decade, Piers co-founded Hummingbird Bioscience in 2015 in order to apply these advances to drug discovery and development.
Biography
Prior to co-founding Hummingbird, Piers spent 15 years in the biopharmaceutical industry across various disciplines from academic research to R&D consulting and commercial strategy. He obtained his PhD in Systems Biology at Imperial College London, funded by the Wellcome Trust, kickstarting a career in academia where he held several roles including as a research group leader at Imperial College London. He then moved to biopharma R&D consulting and commercial strategy roles at Sanofi, an international pharmaceutical company. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. He is responsible for overseeing the development of new technologies and intellectual property, designing experimental strategies for drug discovery, leading the development and testing of novel therapeutics, and overseeing the drug pipeline.
Biography
Jerome is a molecular systems biologist by background with extensive experience at the interface of computational and wet lab biology, and a career research focus of applying systems biology approaches to tackling human disease. Before co-founding Hummingbird Bioscience in 2014, he was an academic at top institutions in the UK and China.
He holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Cambridge University.
Eric Rowinsky, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Focus
Dr. Eric Rowinsky is the Chief Medical Officer (Consultant) at Hummingbird Bioscience, focusing on the clinical and registrational strategies of anticancer therapeutics.
Biography
Dr. Rowinsky is a practicing clinical oncologist and veteran clinical drug developer in the oncologics and biotherapeutics space. He led the Food and Drug Administration approval of Erbitux® for head and neck and colorectal cancers and advanced eight other biological therapeutics through clinical development during his time at ImClone.
Prior to joining ImClone in 2005, Dr. Rowinsky was a longstanding NCI principal investigator on anticancer drug development grants and integrally involved in pivotal clinical and preclinical investigations which lead to the development of both classical chemotherapeutics and targeted therapies, including a wide variety of cytotoxic and targeted anticancer therapeutics.
He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Biogen Idec Inc., Fortress Bio, Verastem, Biophytis, Rgenix and sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several other leading Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies.
He is a distinguished thought leader in the field of oncology with over 300 manuscripts in both the preclinical and clinical research field and holds the position of Editor-in-Chief of Investigational New Drugs, an Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member of Cancer Research (Associate Editor and Reviews Editor), Clinical Cancer Research, Annals of Oncology, Cancer Biology and Therapy and several other oncology journals.
He is an adjunct Professor at New York University School of Medicine.
Konrad Paszkiewicz, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
Focus
Konrad Paszkiewicz is the Chief Technology Officer of Hummingbird Bioscience. He leads Hummingbird’s structural biology, computational genomics, machine learning and internal platform technologies.
Biography
Prior to Hummingbird, Konrad held several academic positions including Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Biomedical Informatics at the University of Exeter, UK and was the head of the University of Exeter Sequencing and Genomics facility.
An expert in bioinformatics, Konrad is author of over 45 peer reviewed publications and a frequent organizer and speaker at several renowned scientific workshops and seminar series. He holds an MSci in Physics and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Imperial College, London.
Miemie Strydom, MBA
VP, Finance and Shared Services
Focus
Miemie Strydom oversees and manages the day-to-day activities cross-functionally for all corporate divisions and workstreams including Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Compliance, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and Fundraising/Transactions.
Biography
A medical scientist by training, Miemie brings more than 13 years of commercial, strategy and investment advisory experience in the Lifesciences and Healthcare industry. She has held both in-house as well as advisory positions, making her uniquely appreciative of the workings of the industry’s ecosystem and how corporate functions are best suited to help realise ground-breaking science and return on investment. Prior to Hummingbird, she has advised on over 100 product development- and launch strategies for leading global pharmaceutical players as Strategy Consultant with IQVIA (UK, Singapore). She also has strong M&A, IPO and financing transactions experience with Deutsche Bank Healthcare Investment Banking, and Davita International where she drove high priority International Finance, M&A and business development initiatives to facilitate sustainable and profitable growth and expansion outside of the US.
She holds an MBA from London Business School, UK (2016), a post-graduate Diploma in Business Management Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Pretoria, South Africa (2005).
Guy Heathers, PhD, MBA
VP, Business Development
Focus
Guy Heathers is responsible for the business development activities of the company, particularly helping to integrate the intellectual property activities to align with business development objectives to maximize the company’s value.
Biography
Guy has over 30 year’s work experience in the pharma/biotech/tech transfer environment. Initially working at Hoffman La Roche in the drug discovery division, he worked for Cancer Research Technology, helping to create a number of early stage spin outs including Cyclacel, Kudos, Crusade, CRV. Moving to Singapore in 2000, he created Biotech Research Ventures, a joint venture between CRT, NCCS and Temasek, which in turn helped to spin out 4 early stage Biotech companies. In Australia, he joined Gateway Capital as CEO to assist early stage biotech companies to list on the ASX. He was also instrumental in setting up Cancer Therapeutics, which received over AUD 100 million in funding over a 14 year period and creating two high profile pharma therapeutics. He worked as the interim CEO for Amaranth Medical and a consultant for NCCS and SingHealth, responsible for a number of commercial collaborations as well as the creation of Enleofen Bio. More recently, he spent 5 years with Tessa Therapeutics. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Leeds University, a PhD from Bath University and an MBA from Farleigh Dickenson University in New Jersey.
James P. Allison, PhD
2018 Nobel Laureate in Medicine
Focus
Mechanisms of T cell development and activation; development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy
Biography
Prof. James P. Allison serves as chair of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Department of Immunology. Dr. Allison has a longstanding interest in mechanisms of T cell development and activation, the development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy. His research led to the development of ipilimumab, which was approved in 2011 by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. Most recently, Dr. Allison was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Dr. Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.
Padmanee Sharma, M.D. PhD
Professor of Medical Oncology,The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Focus
Mechanisms and pathways within the immune system which are responsible for tumor rejection and clinical benefit; development of novel immunotherapy strategies for cancer treatment
Biography
Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, is a leading cancer immunotherapy scientist. Dr. Sharma currently serves as co-director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immumotherapy and as Professor in the departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. A co-founder of Jounce Therapeutics, she is a medical oncologist and immunologist, and is the principal investigator of several immunotherapy clinical trials, which allow her to investigate immune responses and pathways critical for eliciting anti-tumor responses which provide clinical benefit in cancer patients.
John Conolly, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
Focus
Immune monitoring and immunometabolism
Biography
John Connolly, PhD, is a senior principal investigator and director for translational immunology at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IMCB) A*Star. He is also the chief scientific officer (CSO) at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
He previously served as CSO of Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell therapy company focused on solid tumor immunotherapy, where he led a team of researchers to develop next-generation T cell therapy treatments. Dr. Connolly is also an associate professor at National University of Singapore and an adjunct associate professor of Immunology at Baylor University, where he served on the Board of Governors for the Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Dr. Connolly has more than 20 years of research experience in immunotherapy and has published more than 100 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals. As a human immunologist, his research interests focus on immune monitoring and immunometabolism. He received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Dartmouth Medical School, where he studied human dendritic cell biology.
Jianzhu Chen, PhD
Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT
Focus
Cancer Immunology
Biography
Jianzhu Chen, PhD is Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was the lead Principle Investigator of the Infectious Disease Interdisciplinary Research Group of Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). Dr Chen's research seeks fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Recently, his research activity has focused on T cells and macrophages in immunity and diseases and cancer immunotherapy.
Wei Yang, PhD
Director of Target Discovery at Institute for Protein Innovation, Harvard University
Focus
Target Discovery
Biography
Wei Yang, PhD is Director of Target Discovery at the Institute for Protein Innovation at Harvard University. Previously, Wei Yang served as Director of Molecular Biology at Novo Nordisk Research Centre China. He led an international team that successfully produced and screened for interactions between all human secreted proteins and single transmembrane cell surface proteins. This receptor-ligand de-orphaning effort identified the previously unknown receptors for GDF15 and VISTA, which are novel therapeutic targets for obesity and cancer, respectively. Dr Yang received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Jilin University and a PhD. from Peking University.
Chik Wai Chiew, MBA
CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management
Biography
Chik Wai Chiew is the CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management. He has more than 20 years of experience in global investment management and strategic business development, having been active in leading various companies on transformational growth strategies, fund raising and M&A. He initiated Heritas Venture Fund in 2017 which has since invested in digital health, insuretech, diagnostics, and health foodtech etc. Wai Chiew was awarded the Glaxo-EDB scholarship and holds a BA in Economics from Cambridge University, UK; MA from Yale University, USA; and completed his EMBA at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, China.
Victor E. Tong, MBA
Partner at Decheng Capital
Biography
Victor E. Tong is a partner at Decheng Capital focusing on investments in biotechnology and medical technology companies in the US and China. He has served on the boards of over ten successful Decheng backed companies leading to numerous aquisitions and IPOs. Prior to joining Decheng, Victor was a Principal at Bay City Capital and was a member of the founding team of Nevro. He was also an investment banker with Morgan Stanley advising healthcare companies on IPOs and specialized in strategic advisory work. Victor is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business.
Jonggil Choi
Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings
Biography
onggil Choi is a Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings. In his role, he oversees M&A and investments focusing on next generation biotech initiatives. Jonggil has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He started his career as a researcher at Group’s subsidiary, SK Biopharm, before moving into a role in corporate strategy development. He holds a M.S. in Biochemical engineering and a B.S. in Life Science from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Minsop Song, MBA
Director of GNTECH Venture Capital
Biography
Minsop Song is Director of GNTECH Venture Capital where he focuses on investing in biotechnology companies. Prior to joining GNTECH, he was Senior Associate at M-Venture Investment focusing on investments in therapeutics, diagnostics companies. He started his career at SK Biopharmaceuticals and Lifescience Division of SK Holdings. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Sogang University. He also holds an MBA from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) College of Business.
Ahryon Cho, PhD
Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment
Biography
Dr. Cho is Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment, the venture capital arm of Korea-based Mirae Asset Financial Group, a leading financial services group in Asia. She has completed multiple equity investments in companies developing innovative therapeutics and diagnostics. Previously, Dr. Cho was a research assistant professor at Yonsei University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Neuroscience at Princeton University, NJ, USA, and completed her post-doctoral training in Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA.
Piers Ingram, PhD, MBA
Chief Executive Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Piers Ingram is the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. Seeing the exciting progress in systems biology and immunology over the last decade, Piers co-founded Hummingbird Bioscience in 2015 in order to apply these advances to drug discovery and development.
Biography
Prior to co-founding Hummingbird, Piers spent 15 years in the biopharmaceutical industry across various disciplines from academic research to R&D consulting and commercial strategy. He obtained his PhD in Systems Biology at Imperial College London, funded by the Wellcome Trust, kickstarting a career in academia where he held several roles including as a research group leader at Imperial College London. He then moved to biopharma R&D consulting and commercial strategy roles at Sanofi, an international pharmaceutical company. He also holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer, Co-Founder, Executive Director
Focus
Jerome Boyd-Kirkup is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Hummingbird Bioscience. He is responsible for overseeing the development of new technologies and intellectual property, designing experimental strategies for drug discovery, leading the development and testing of novel therapeutics, and overseeing the drug pipeline.
Biography
Jerome is a molecular systems biologist by background with extensive experience at the interface of computational and wet lab biology, and a career research focus of applying systems biology approaches to tackling human disease. Before co-founding Hummingbird Bioscience in 2014, he was an academic at top institutions in the UK and China.
He holds a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Biochemistry from Imperial College London and a PhD in Molecular Biology from Cambridge University.
Eric Rowinsky, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Focus
Dr. Eric Rowinsky is the Chief Medical Officer (Consultant) at Hummingbird Bioscience, focusing on the clinical and registrational strategies of anticancer therapeutics.
Biography
Dr. Rowinsky is a practicing clinical oncologist and veteran clinical drug developer in the oncologics and biotherapeutics space. He led the Food and Drug Administration approval of Erbitux® for head and neck and colorectal cancers and advanced eight other biological therapeutics through clinical development during his time at ImClone.
Prior to joining ImClone in 2005, Dr. Rowinsky was a longstanding NCI principal investigator on anticancer drug development grants and integrally involved in pivotal clinical and preclinical investigations which lead to the development of both classical chemotherapeutics and targeted therapies, including a wide variety of cytotoxic and targeted anticancer therapeutics.
He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Biogen Idec Inc., Fortress Bio, Verastem, Biophytis, Rgenix and sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several other leading Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology companies.
He is a distinguished thought leader in the field of oncology with over 300 manuscripts in both the preclinical and clinical research field and holds the position of Editor-in-Chief of Investigational New Drugs, an Associate Editor and Editorial Board Member of Cancer Research (Associate Editor and Reviews Editor), Clinical Cancer Research, Annals of Oncology, Cancer Biology and Therapy and several other oncology journals.
He is an adjunct Professor at New York University School of Medicine.
Konrad Paszkiewicz, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
Focus
Konrad Paszkiewicz is the Chief Technology Officer of Hummingbird Bioscience. He leads Hummingbird’s structural biology, computational genomics, machine learning and internal platform technologies.
Biography
Prior to Hummingbird, Konrad held several academic positions including Director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Biomedical Informatics at the University of Exeter, UK and was the head of the University of Exeter Sequencing and Genomics facility.
An expert in bioinformatics, Konrad is author of over 45 peer reviewed publications and a frequent organizer and speaker at several renowned scientific workshops and seminar series. He holds an MSci in Physics and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Imperial College, London.
Miemie Strydom, MBA
VP, Finance and Shared Services
Focus
Miemie Strydom oversees and manages the day-to-day activities cross-functionally for all corporate divisions and workstreams including Finance, Human Resources, Legal, Compliance, Corporate Communications, Investor Relations and Fundraising/Transactions.
Biography
A medical scientist by training, Miemie brings more than 13 years of commercial, strategy and investment advisory experience in the Lifesciences and Healthcare industry. She has held both in-house as well as advisory positions, making her uniquely appreciative of the workings of the industry’s ecosystem and how corporate functions are best suited to help realise ground-breaking science and return on investment. Prior to Hummingbird, she has advised on over 100 product development- and launch strategies for leading global pharmaceutical players as Strategy Consultant with IQVIA (UK, Singapore). She also has strong M&A, IPO and financing transactions experience with Deutsche Bank Healthcare Investment Banking, and Davita International where she drove high priority International Finance, M&A and business development initiatives to facilitate sustainable and profitable growth and expansion outside of the US.
She holds an MBA from London Business School, UK (2016), a post-graduate Diploma in Business Management Studies and a Bachelor’s degree in Medical Sciences from the University of Pretoria, South Africa (2005).
Guy Heathers, PhD, MBA
VP, Business Development
Focus
Guy Heathers is responsible for the business development activities of the company, particularly helping to integrate the intellectual property activities to align with business development objectives to maximize the company’s value.
Biography
Guy has over 30 year’s work experience in the pharma/biotech/tech transfer environment. Initially working at Hoffman La Roche in the drug discovery division, he worked for Cancer Research Technology, helping to create a number of early stage spin outs including Cyclacel, Kudos, Crusade, CRV. Moving to Singapore in 2000, he created Biotech Research Ventures, a joint venture between CRT, NCCS and Temasek, which in turn helped to spin out 4 early stage Biotech companies. In Australia, he joined Gateway Capital as CEO to assist early stage biotech companies to list on the ASX. He was also instrumental in setting up Cancer Therapeutics, which received over AUD 100 million in funding over a 14 year period and creating two high profile pharma therapeutics. He worked as the interim CEO for Amaranth Medical and a consultant for NCCS and SingHealth, responsible for a number of commercial collaborations as well as the creation of Enleofen Bio. More recently, he spent 5 years with Tessa Therapeutics. He holds a Bachelor's degree from Leeds University, a PhD from Bath University and an MBA from Farleigh Dickenson University in New Jersey.
James P. Allison, PhD
2018 Nobel Laureate in Medicine
Focus
Mechanisms of T cell development and activation; development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy
Biography
Prof. James P. Allison serves as chair of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Department of Immunology. Dr. Allison has a longstanding interest in mechanisms of T cell development and activation, the development of novel strategies for tumor immunotherapy. His research led to the development of ipilimumab, which was approved in 2011 by the FDA for the treatment of metastatic melanoma. Most recently, Dr. Allison was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with Dr. Tasuku Honjo for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.
Padmanee Sharma, M.D. PhD
Professor of Medical Oncology,The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Focus
Mechanisms and pathways within the immune system which are responsible for tumor rejection and clinical benefit; development of novel immunotherapy strategies for cancer treatment
Biography
Padmanee Sharma, MD, PhD, is a leading cancer immunotherapy scientist. Dr. Sharma currently serves as co-director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immumotherapy and as Professor in the departments of Genitourinary Medical Oncology and Immunology at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. A co-founder of Jounce Therapeutics, she is a medical oncologist and immunologist, and is the principal investigator of several immunotherapy clinical trials, which allow her to investigate immune responses and pathways critical for eliciting anti-tumor responses which provide clinical benefit in cancer patients.
John Conolly, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy
Focus
Immune monitoring and immunometabolism
Biography
John Connolly, PhD, is a senior principal investigator and director for translational immunology at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IMCB) A*Star. He is also the chief scientific officer (CSO) at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
He previously served as CSO of Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell therapy company focused on solid tumor immunotherapy, where he led a team of researchers to develop next-generation T cell therapy treatments. Dr. Connolly is also an associate professor at National University of Singapore and an adjunct associate professor of Immunology at Baylor University, where he served on the Board of Governors for the Institute of Biomedical Sciences.
Dr. Connolly has more than 20 years of research experience in immunotherapy and has published more than 100 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals. As a human immunologist, his research interests focus on immune monitoring and immunometabolism. He received his Ph.D. in Immunology from Dartmouth Medical School, where he studied human dendritic cell biology.
Jianzhu Chen, PhD
Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, MIT
Focus
Cancer Immunology
Biography
Jianzhu Chen, PhD is Professor of Biology at Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was the lead Principle Investigator of the Infectious Disease Interdisciplinary Research Group of Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (SMART). Dr Chen's research seeks fundamental understanding of the immune system as well as its application in disease intervention. Recently, his research activity has focused on T cells and macrophages in immunity and diseases and cancer immunotherapy.
Wei Yang, PhD
Director of Target Discovery at Institute for Protein Innovation, Harvard University
Focus
Target Discovery
Biography
Wei Yang, PhD is Director of Target Discovery at the Institute for Protein Innovation at Harvard University. Previously, Wei Yang served as Director of Molecular Biology at Novo Nordisk Research Centre China. He led an international team that successfully produced and screened for interactions between all human secreted proteins and single transmembrane cell surface proteins. This receptor-ligand de-orphaning effort identified the previously unknown receptors for GDF15 and VISTA, which are novel therapeutic targets for obesity and cancer, respectively. Dr Yang received B.S. and M.S. degrees from Jilin University and a PhD. from Peking University.
Chik Wai Chiew, MBA
CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management
Biography
Chik Wai Chiew is the CEO and Executive Director of Heritas Capital Management. He has more than 20 years of experience in global investment management and strategic business development, having been active in leading various companies on transformational growth strategies, fund raising and M&A. He initiated Heritas Venture Fund in 2017 which has since invested in digital health, insuretech, diagnostics, and health foodtech etc. Wai Chiew was awarded the Glaxo-EDB scholarship and holds a BA in Economics from Cambridge University, UK; MA from Yale University, USA; and completed his EMBA at Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business, China.
Victor E. Tong, MBA
Partner at Decheng Capital
Biography
Victor E. Tong is a partner at Decheng Capital focusing on investments in biotechnology and medical technology companies in the US and China. He has served on the boards of over ten successful Decheng backed companies leading to numerous aquisitions and IPOs. Prior to joining Decheng, Victor was a Principal at Bay City Capital and was a member of the founding team of Nevro. He was also an investment banker with Morgan Stanley advising healthcare companies on IPOs and specialized in strategic advisory work. Victor is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley and holds a degree in Business Administration from the Haas School of Business.
Jonggil Choi
Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings
Biography
onggil Choi is a Director of the Pharma Healthcare Group at SK Holdings. In his role, he oversees M&A and investments focusing on next generation biotech initiatives. Jonggil has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He started his career as a researcher at Group’s subsidiary, SK Biopharm, before moving into a role in corporate strategy development. He holds a M.S. in Biochemical engineering and a B.S. in Life Science from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
Minsop Song, MBA
Director of GNTECH Venture Capital
Biography
Minsop Song is Director of GNTECH Venture Capital where he focuses on investing in biotechnology companies. Prior to joining GNTECH, he was Senior Associate at M-Venture Investment focusing on investments in therapeutics, diagnostics companies. He started his career at SK Biopharmaceuticals and Lifescience Division of SK Holdings. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Sogang University. He also holds an MBA from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) College of Business.
Ahryon Cho, PhD
Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment
Biography
Dr. Cho is Director of Mirae Asset Venture Investment, the venture capital arm of Korea-based Mirae Asset Financial Group, a leading financial services group in Asia. She has completed multiple equity investments in companies developing innovative therapeutics and diagnostics. Previously, Dr. Cho was a research assistant professor at Yonsei University School of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Neuroscience at Princeton University, NJ, USA, and completed her post-doctoral training in Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine, CA, USA.