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Kumar Srinivasan,
Ph.D., MBA
President & Chief Executive Officer
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Kumar Srinivasan's bio
Kumar Srinivasan, Ph.D., MBA, in his most recent role served as executive vice president and chief business officer at Turning Point Therapeutics with responsibility for corporate strategy and business development, including collaborations and alliances where he successfully lead the sale of the company to Bristol Myers Squibb for $ 4.1 billion.
Dr. Srinivasan has over 25 years of experience in pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, most recently as vice president and global head of business development for the BioPharmaceutical business unit of AstraZeneca.
During his 9+-year tenure at AstraZeneca, Dr. Srinivasan was responsible for all in- and out-licensing, business development and alliance management activities within several therapeutic areas. During the pandemic Dr. Srinivasan lead the licensing and global supply agreements for the AstraZeneca’s vaccine and mAb cocktails and contributed significantly to the success of both these programs which made a tremendous impact on global health.
Earlier in his career Dr. Srinivasan held senior business development roles at Wyeth; Vivoryon (formerly known as Probiodrug), a publicly traded biotech based in Germany; and Torrey Pines Therapeutics.
He has a Ph.D from Case Western University in chemistry, did his postdoctoral work at Caltech and has an MBA with a concentration in finance and strategy from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business.
Matthew Cooper,
Ph.D.
Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer
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Matthew Cooper's bio
Dr. Cooper has over 15 years of experience in oncology and is a founder of Wugen. He conducted his post-doctoral research in hematologic malignancies with Dr. John DiPersio at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Cooper has since held the position of Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Cooper’s work has focused on developing next generation CAR-T for the treatment of hematologic malignancies, overcoming the barriers that limit the safety and efficacy of adoptive cellular therapies.
Dr. Cooper received his Ph.D. in Cancer Genetics and his B.Sc., with Honors, in Molecular Microbiology from the University of Surrey, in the United Kingdom.
Ayman Kabakibi,
Ph.D.
Chief Operating Officer & EVP, R&D
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Ayman Kabakibi's bio
Dr. Kabakibi has over two decades of experience in drug discovery and early development in large pharma and biotech companies. He took several projects, across multiple therapeutic areas, from concept through to clinical development. Most recently, he co-founded Tollnine Inc., an immuno-oncology company developing novel antibody conjugates and served as its Vice President of Biology. Prior to that, he was the Executive Director of Biology at Solstice Biologics, an RNAi and immuno-oncology company exploring novel siRNA technologies for the development of human therapeutics. Before Solstice, Dr. Kabakibi was the Head of Biology and Pharmacology at Traversa Therapeutics. Prior to Traversa, he spent 5 years at Kalypsys Inc. as the Head of Pharmacology. He started his career at Pfizer working on inflammation and metabolic disease targets.
Dr. Kabakibi earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts, Lowell and performed his graduate research at the Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He earned a Master’s Degree (M.Sc.) in Medical Laboratory Sciences from Northeastern University.
Jan Davidson,
M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
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Jan Davidson's bio
Dr. Davidson has over twenty years of research and clinical experience across both academia and the biotech industry, which includes firsthand understanding of the successful design and implementation of oncology clinical trials and an expansive immune-oncology research expertise that spans across a variety of cancers. In his most recent most role as Senior Director for Clinical Research at Macrogenics. Inc, Dr. Davidson oversaw the company’s translational and clinical research efforts. Prior to MacroGenics. Inc, Dr. Davidson conducted clinical research at the National Heart and Lung Institute at National Institutes of Health (NIH) where he investigated NK cell ontogeny and subtypes, as well as their role in adoptive cell therapy. His substantial research and medical career saw him in senior positions at NHLBI Bone Marrow Transplant Service, Center for Human Immunology and the National Cancer Institute of the NIH, Montefiore Medical Center and The Rockefeller University Hospital among others.
Dr. Davidson received his MBBS from the Royal Free & University College London Medical School and his Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine from the University College London in the UK. He is a physician-scientist with numerous research grants and awards under his name.
Kenneth Chrobak,
Ph.D.
SVP, CMC
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Kenneth Chrobak's bio
Dr. Chrobak has over 15 years of industry experience in development and manufacturing. He has overseen CMC at Wugen since February 2019, where he built and heads process development, analytical development, manufacturing sciences and technology, outsourcing, and manufacturing. Prior to joining Wugen, Dr. Chrobak was focused on developing and manufacturing cell therapy products at Allogene Therapeutics (2018-2019) and Pfizer (2015-2018) where he led the successful tech transfer of multiple CART programs from development into clinical manufacturing. Previously, he has held multiple positions of increasing responsibility at Baxter International in Process Science and Technical Operations (2008-2015), supporting both clinical and commercial biologics manufacturing.
Dr. Chrobak received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Boston University and his B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Mark Lewis,
Ph.D.
VP, Finance & Business Operations
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Mark Lewis' bio
Dr. Lewis has over 10 years of biotechnology and oncology research experience. Before joining Wugen, Dr. Lewis was appointed Venture Capital Fellow at BioGenerator (2018-2019), an evergreen investor that creates, develops and funds innovative companies and entrepreneurs in the St. Louis region. Prior to completing his doctoral work, Dr. Lewis held several positions at Monsanto Company (2006-2013), leading efforts to validate and implement novel sequencing technologies and on-board data management systems.
Dr. Lewis received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and M.Sc. in Biology from the Washington University in St. Louis and his B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the Eastern Connecticut State University.
Eileen McNulty
VP, Clinical Operations
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Eileen McNulty's bio
Eileen joins Wugen with more than 25 years of biopharmaceutical industry experience. Eileen brings a broad set of expertise in the design and execution of clinical trials, developing, and implementing innovative clinical strategies and leading cross-functional teams to develop novel therapeutics. Most recently, Eileen was Associate Director of Clinical Operations at MacroGenics where she supported early and late phase programs for monoclonal antibodies as well as being one of the clinical operations leads on the Margetuximab (Margenza®) BLA team. Prior to MacroGenics, Eileen held various operational positions at Cerecor, Inc (now Avalo Therapeutics, Inc), Human Genome Sciences (now GlaxoSmithKline), and Otsuka America Pharmaceutical.
Carol Weiss
Senior Director, Quality Assurance
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Carol Weiss' bio
Carol Weiss has over 20 years of industry experience in Quality Assurance. She joined Wugen in 2021 and has been instrumental in building the Wugen Quality systems, processes and team required to release GMP Drug Products for the Clinic. Prior to Wugen, Carol held broad range of Quality Assurance positions of increasing responsibilies at Pfizer, Wyeth BioPharma and Genetics Institute whichincluded a wide range of modalities and regulatory strategies and spanned the entire lifecycle of GMP drug manufacturing from Phase 1-3, BLA licensing and commercial. She is a Quality Subject Matter Expert in deviations, investigations, Root Cause Analysis, Quality Risk Management, and cGMP compliance, including documentation, vendor qualification and oversight, conducting and hosting audits and managing regulatory inspections.
Carol received her BS in Microbiology from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Ken Jacobs, M.D.
VP, Clinical Development
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Ken Jacobs' bio
Dr. Jacobs is a medical and pharmacovigilance expert with over 25 years of clinical and pharmacovigilance experience in biologics and clinical sage oncologic programs. Before joining Wugen, his most recent role was as Vice President of Pharmacovigilance at MacroGenics. Inc. Dr. Jacobs was the lead safety physician, provided safety oversight for MacroGenics clinical assets, and was the pharmacovigilance lead or the first cycle approval of a successful biologics license application of margetuximab. At Wugen, Dr. Jacobs is the medical/clinical lead for the WU-CART-007 program and provides medical/clinical support for other cellular platforms, the Allogenic NK cell program.
Dr. Jacobs received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
Laura Simpson, Ph.D.
VP, Regulatory Affairs
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Laura Simpson's bio
Dr. Simpson has 18 years of regulatory experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. She was most recently Senior Director of Regulatory Affairs at Regeneron, where she had roles of increasing responsibility, leading the global marketing applications for approval of Regeneron’s anti-PD-1 antibody LIBTAYO® in advanced non-melanoma skin cancers. Prior to Regeneron, Laura spent several years at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in the Office of Clinical Research in New York City.
Dr. Simpson has a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Tulane University in New Orleans and completed her postdoctoral work at the Institute for Cancer Genetics at Columbia University in New York City.
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