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Inceptor Bio
2450 Perimeter Park Dr #200
Morrisville, NC 27560
USA
Email: info@inceptor.bio
© 2023 Inceptor Bio. All Rights Reserved
Matthias Schroff, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Matthias Schroff, PhD, is Inceptor Bio’s Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Schroff has extensive biopharmaceutical leadership experience with a track record of success building companies and developing new medicines in immuno-oncology, inflammatory diseases, and genetic disorders. Dr. Schroff was most recently Chief Executive Officer of Exicure, a publicly traded biotechnology company developing gene regulatory and immunotherapeutic drugs. Dr. Schroff earned a degree in Biochemistry at the University of Leibniz University Hannover and his Doctorate of Molecular Biology from Freie University Berlin.
Sumiti Jain, Ph.D.
VP, Research and Development
Sumiti Jain is the VP of Research and Development at Inceptor Bio. Prior to this role, Sumiti has served as an R&D leader at Poseida Therapeutics, Sangamo Therapeutics and Juno Therapeutics where she has advanced multiple autologous and allogeneic cell therapy products to the clinic. Most recently, she was the VP of R&D at a stealth biotech company with a research focus to treat solid tumors. Dr. Jain earned her PhD in Immunology and Virology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, and did her post-doctoral fellowship at the NIH in Cell Therapy.
Abe Maingi
VP, Business Development
Abe Maingi is Vice President of Business Development at Inceptor Bio. Prior to his current role, he spent seven years at Kineticos Life Sciences, an award-winning life sciences advisory firm, serving in roles of increasing responsibility. He is a partner in the Kineticos Disruptor Fund and serves as a board observer for Promaxo, a medical technology company that develops and commercializes customer-centric MRI systems and MRI-based technologies. He serves as Adjunct Faculty at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Abe received his BA in Business Administration from Campbell University.
Jason Lawrence
Senior Director, Finance
Jason Lawrence is Senior Director of Finance at Inceptor Bio, overseeing the company’s accounting, tax, treasury, and financial planning functions. Prior to joining Inceptor Bio, he was the Senior Director of FP&A at Asklepios Biopharmaceutical (AskBio) where he, among other things, was responsible for building the Company’s FP&A function and played an integral role in Acquisition by Bayer. Prior to AskBio he held various FP&A and SEC Reporting roles with Metabolon, Patheon and R.H. Donnelley. Jason earned his MS in Taxation from Golden Gate University and BS in Accounting from Western International University.
Shailesh Maingi
Founder and Executive Chair
Shailesh Maingi is Founder and Executive Chair of Inceptor Bio. He is also the Founder and Chairman of Kineticos Life Sciences, an award-winning life sciences advisory firm. In 2019, Shailesh launched the Kineticos Disruptor Fund, investing in life science start-ups. He also co-founded the InVincible Cancer Research Fund in 2019. Shailesh serves on the Board of Directors for numerous biotechs and is Adjunct Faculty at University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler School of Business. He earned his BS in Chemistry from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his MBA from Golden Gate University.
Mark Bamforth
Advisor, Board of Directors
Mark Bamforth is the Founder and CEO of Arranta Bio, a best-in-class microbiome contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO). Previously, Mr. Bamforth founded Brammer Bio in 2015, a best-in-class viral vector CDMO supporting cell and gene therapies, which was acquired by Thermo Fisher Scientific in April 2019. Mark serves on the boards of Avid Bioservices, MassBio, Wentworth Institute of Technology, and Entrepreneurial Scotland. He has a BS in Chemical Engineering from Strathclyde University and an MBA from Henley Management College.
Derek Hennecke
Advisor, Board of Directors
Derek Hennecke is a partner in the Kineticos Disruptor Fund, a fund focused on disruptive, platform technologies addressing unmet medical needs. Derek was also the Founder and CEO of Xcelience, a Florida-based contract development and manufacturing company that specialized in developing clinical Phase I-III drug product. He started the company in 2006 and sold it to a large multinational in 2016. He is currently a Board Member for The Friedreich’s Ataxia Research Alliance. Derek received his BSC from the University of Alberta and his MBA from RSM Erasmus Universiteit.
George Fotiades
Advisor, Board of Directors
George Fotiades is a recognized chief executive who has led global, complex companies through significant change — the kind that accompanies development and marketing of major new products and services, creating organizational capabilities on a global scale, securing a broad range of strategic acquisitions, and integrating businesses to create unified operating companies. Beginning in early 2019, Fotiades served as CEO of Cantel Medical, a leader in infection prevention solutions serving the medical and dental markets. During his tenure, Fotiades implemented several organic growth initiatives to expand global leadership of the endoscopy reprocessing market, successfully navigated the impact of the Covid pandemic to emerge with a stronger market presence, completed a $775 mil transformational acquisition to become the clear market leader in dental office infection prevention, and led a significant strategic sale to Steris Corporation in June 2021 for $4.6B, a ~17x EBITDA multiple. George Fotiades serves as chairman of the board of AptarGroup (NYSE: ATR), the leading global supplier of dispensing systems for a broad range of consumer and healthcare products, and as a director of ProLogis (NYSE: PLD), the leading global provider of distribution facilities and services. Fotiades holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from Amherst College and a master’s degree from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern.
Elizabeth Smith
Advisor, Board of Directors
Liz Smith currently serves a Deputy Director, Regulatory Affairs for the Gates Foundation, providing regulatory guidance to foundation teams and development partners to ensure that regulatory strategies support timely and successful development and registration of products supported by the foundation’s grants. Before joining the foundation in 2020, Liz spent 28 years providing regulatory guidance and leadership, specializing in biologics, drugs, and cell and gene therapies in both consulting and corporate roles. Most recently, she was an early member of the Juno Therapeutics executive team, first as senior advisor to the CEO and then as senior vice president of regulatory and quality, where she established regulatory strategies for multiple genetically engineered cell therapy assets initially developed at academic institutions (Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children’s Research Institute) and then acquired by Juno after Phase I studies. She then served as senior strategic advisor to the company’s development teams and the president of R&D.Earlier, Liz served as vice president of regulatory affairs at Dendreon, where she expanded the regulatory strategy; chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC); and operations functions and led the regulatory effort to obtain FDA approval of Provenge, the first therapeutic cellular cancer vaccine for the treatment of prostate cancer. Liz also held a variety of regulatory positions at Genentech, with responsibility for the CMC aspects of Herceptin, as well as Immunex (acquired by Amgen), where she began her career in manufacturing. Liz holds a bachelor’s degree in biology (cum laude) from Central Washington University.
Mark Gilbert, M.D.
Advisor, Board of Directors
Mark Gilbert, M.D. was previously Chief Medical Officer at Juno Therapeutics. Prior to joining Juno, Dr. Gilbert served as an interim Chief Medical Officer and consultant in strategic drug development and portfolio management in medical oncology for several U.S. biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Prior to these positions, Dr. Gilbert was a faculty member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington in Seattle and trained in the laboratory of Dr. Phil Greenberg, one of Juno’s scientific co-founders. Dr. Gilbert earned a BS degree in biochemistry from the University of Iowa and an MD from the University of Iowa Medical School in Iowa City, Iowa. Dr. Gilbert also serves as chair of Inceptor Bio’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Mike Nicholson, Ph.D.
President, Chief Operating Officer
Mike Nicholson is President and COO at Inceptor Bio. Prior to Inceptor Bio, Dr. Nicholson spent nearly 13 years at Precision BioSciences, where he held several leadership roles, including Executive Director of Scientific Operations, Vice President of R&D, and Senior Vice President of Research. Dr. Nicholson played a key role in developing Precision’s novel gene editing platform and led research teams focused on allogeneic CAR T therapies and gene editing-based gene therapies. Dr. Nicholson earned his BS in chemistry from SUNY Brockport, his Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine,and carried out postdoctoral research at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Chris Heery, M.D.
Advisor
Chris Heery is the Chief Medical Officer at Arcellx, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel, adaptive and controllable cell therapies for the treatment of patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases. Prior to joining Arcellx, Dr. Heery served as Chief Medical Officer at Precision Biosciences and Bavarian Nordic where he oversaw clinical development programs in allogenic CAR-T, immune-oncology and infectious diseases portfolios. Dr. Heery has a BA in English Literature from Duke University, an MD from East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine, and completed his internal medicine residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is board-certified in Medical Oncology and Internal Medicine.
Richard Snyder, Ph.D.
Advisor
Richard Snyder, Ph.D., is the Vice President for Science and Technology, Pharma Services, and Viral Vector Services at Thermo Fisher Scientific. Prior to his role at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Dr. Synder was Chief Scientific Officer at Brammer Bio, an Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, and Director of Biotherapeutic Programs at the University of Florida. Dr. Snyder was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, received his doctoral degree in Microbiology from The State University of New York at Stony Brook, and obtained his BA in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis.
Dave Ousterout, Ph.D.
Advisor
Dave Ousterout, Ph.D., is Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer for Locus Biosciences. Dr. Ousterout’s expertise is in protein engineering and early-stage applications of new technologies to treat human diseases. He completed his doctoral studies at Duke University in the lab of Dr. Charles Gersbach, where he developed novel gene-editing approaches for correcting mutations that cause Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Dr. Ousterout earned a B.S. in Biological & Environmental Engineering from Cornell University, an MS in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University.
Chris Ramsborg, Ph.D.
Advisor
Chris Ramsborg has a PhD. in chemical and biological engineering from Northwestern University and a B.S. in chemical engineering from Stanford University. Chris is a fellow at the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He most recently served as the Vice President, Process Science and Technology at Bristol Myers Squibb (Formerly Juno Therapeutics) in Seattle, Washington. Prior to joining the leadership team at BMS, Dr. Ramsborg served in roles of increasing responsibility within Process Sciences at Dendreon. While there, he was responsible for commercial and clinical process development, including the development of the internal capabilities for manufacturing ancillary reagents. In addition, he was responsible for developing comparability strategies to implement new technologies in bioprocesses. Dr. Ramsborg also had several translational science roles at Merck Research Labs, where he worked to translate novel assays and technologies into decision-making tools, and ultimately companion diagnostics. Over the course of his career, Dr. Ramsborg has consistently worked in novel therapeutic areas where technology development and implementation is required for successful product development.
