Discovering and developing the next generation of medicines for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases

Dr. Ramon Felciano is a senior executive and entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in the life sciences and digital technology industries. He currently serves as Founder and Principal at Digital Alchemy; a strategy consultancy focused on data-enabled growth strategies, capital allocation, product innovation, and business models for digital health, life sciences, and private equity & venture organizations. Dr. Felciano previously served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vice President, Strategy for QIAGEN N.V., where he founded and led strategy for QIAGEN Digital Insights (QDI), QIAGEN's acclaimed business unit for the artificial intelligence, data science, and bioinformatics markets. Dr. Felciano also founded Ingenuity Systems, the global leader in AI-driven genome interpretation and drug discovery for pharma, biotech, and life sciences enterprises (exited to QIAGEN in 2013). While at Ingenuity, Dr. Felciano was PI for a large-scale DTRA-funded innovation program for AI-driven drug discovery program for broad-spectrum, host-directed countermeasures. Dr. Felciano received his Ph.D. and M.S. in Biomedical Data Sciences from Stanford Medical School and his B.S. in Computer Science and B.A. in English and French Literature from Stanford University.

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Dr. Christiane Honisch is Senior Vice President of the Diagnostics Devision (Evognostics) at Evotec, responsible for building novel patient stratifications based on omics technologies and machine learning along Evotec’s drug discovery target identification.

She is an independent member of the board of directors at PathoQuest, a genomic expert dedicated to the microbiology testing market.

With over 20 years of experience in developing assays and cutting-edge technology like next-generation sequencing and mass spectrometry for the Life Science and Diagnostics industry, she joined Evotec from Eppendorf AG, where she was Head of Global Business Intelligence and Development.

Prior to Eppendorf, Christiane was Director of Microbiology Markets at Illumina, Inc. in San Diego, CA, and Director of Infectious Disease Research at Roche Molecular Diagnostics in San Francisco, CA. Her career started as a key individual in the development of nucleic acid mass spectrometry for infectious diseases, oncology, and prenatal diagnostics at Sequenom, Inc., San Diego, CA.

Prior to joining DNS Capital in 2019, Brian was a member of The Pritzker Organization in Chicago. While there, Brian was responsible for sourcing, executing, and leading investments across a wide range of industries, including healthcare and insurance. His previous experience includes working as a Strategy Consultant for Monitor Group (now Monitor Deloitte) and managing a portfolio of options and equities for Peak6 Investments. Brian has served on the board of directors of GreyCastle Holdings and as a shareholder representative for Vi Senior Living. Brian received his M.B.A. with honors from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and his B.S. with honors and distinction from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

Mr. Weiss is a healthcare, biopharma, and medical tech visionary who has been recognized as one of the healthcare industry’s most influential people. He is the Founder and Chairman of Real Chemistry, a global health innovation company that uses real-world data, proprietary technologies, and analytical insights to solve the healthcare industry’s most significant engagement and commercialization challenges. He also serves as an Executive Advisor of New Mountain Capital, Real Chemistry’s investment partner. Mr. Weiss is a Board member of Indapta Therapeutics, as well as a Board member and contributor to the LAGRANT Foundation, the Cancer Research Institute, the Commons Project, and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.

Ms. Owens is a founding partner at Initiate Ventures and Studios. She previously served as co-founder and executive at GRAIL, where she led product strategy, marketing, and commercial. Prior to that, she was the founder and CEO of Spark Diagnostics, a digital health platform for the management of chronic neurological disorders. Additionally, she has been a partner at Kleiner Perkins and managed business strategy for Genomic Health.

Mr. Bradbury is a Life Sciences Executive with over 35 years of experience creating and implementing strategies that transform businesses, bring novel medicines to market, and maximize shareholder value. He is the managing member of BioBrit LLC, a life sciences consulting and investment firm, as well as Executive Chairman and co-founder of Equillium, (NASDAQ: EQ), a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company focused on developing products to treat severe autoimmune and inflammatory disorders. Previously, he served as President, CEO, and Director of Amylin Pharmaceuticals until their acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb. He serves on the boards of a number of leading healthcare companies.

Dr. Lanier, Ph.D., is an American Cancer Society Professor, J. Michael Bishop MD Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. Dr. Lanier received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from UNC – Chapel Hill. After postdoctoral studies, he joined the R&D Department at the Becton Dickinson Monoclonal Center, advancing to Associate Director.  In 1990, he joined the DNAX Research Institute, where he advanced to Director of Immunobiology, and in 1999 joined the faculty of UCSF.  His research group studies Natural Killer cells, which recognize and eliminate cells that have become transformed or infected by viruses. In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic Tumor Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute (2002), received the Rose Payne Award for contributions to the field of Immunogenetics by the American Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics (2005), was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences (2010), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011).  He served as President of the American Association of Immunologists (2006-2007) and was named an AAI Distinguished Fellow in 2019.

Dr. Weiss received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago.  He is currently the Ephraim P. Engleman Distinguished Professor of Rheumatology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where he has been on the faculty since 1985.  He served as Division Chief of Rheumatology at UCSF from 1988-2011.  He was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator from 1985 to 2022.  Dr. Weiss studies signal transduction in the immune system, focusing on the roles of tyrosine kinases and phosphatases in regulating lymphocyte activation and how abnormalities in tyrosine phosphorylation pathways lead to immunologically mediated diseases.  He is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.  He is a co-founder and on the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of Nurix Therapeutics.  He is also on the SABs of BlueSphere Bio, BridGene Biosciences, Genentech, and Jasper Therapeutics.

Dr. Engel obtained his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Barcelona. After training as a postdoctoral fellow at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of Harvard Medical School, Dr. Engel became an Assistant Professor in the Department of Immunology at Duke University School of Medicine. He is currently a Professor of Immunology and head of the Immunology Unit in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Barcelona. His research is focused on lymphocyte cell-surface molecules and their role in the regulation of immune responses. He is also an expert in the production and characterization of monoclonal antibodies.

Dr. Veillette is a world-recognized immunologist and medical oncologist interested in signal transduction mechanisms in the immune system. Over the past three decades, he has identified and characterized numerous intracellular molecules and receptors that play a crucial role in normal immune regulation. A number of these molecules are directly or indirectly involved in the pathogenesis of leukemias, lymphomas, and other malignancies. They have also been linked to the development of immunodeficiencies and auto-immunity. These proteins are potential targets for therapeutic immunoregulation in the treatment of cancer, auto-immune diseases, and viral infections.  Dr. Veillette uses state-of-the-art genetic, molecular, biochemical, and cellular approaches to study these molecules.  His work has resulted in numerous publications in top scientific journals and the awarding of several prizes and prestigious grants.  He is invited to give conferences all over the world and to organize important international scientific conferences and is on the editorial board of important scientific journals. Dr. Veillette’s research is currently funded by CIHR and the Terry Fox Research Institute.  He is the recipient of a Tier Canadian Research Chair. Dr. Veillette is a member of the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force and the Long COVID Task Force of the Government of Canada.  He is also the Executive Director of the Marathon of Hope Cancer Centres Network (MOHCCN).

Eric Perakslis, Ph.D. is the chief science and digital officer at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and professor of Population Health Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine who brings deep expertise in the use of data to better understand complex diseases. He previously served as chief information officer and chief scientist (Informatics) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as senior vice president and head of the Takeda R&D Data Science Institute, and as senior vice president of R&D Information Technology at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals R&D.

Dr. Vermeire, M.D., Ph.D., is a staff member at the Gastroenterology Department of the University Hospitals Leuven as well as Professor of Medicine and Research Director for the Biomedical Sciences Group at the Catholic University of Leuven. She has been actively involved in the development of therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and has authored more than 500 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Vermeire previously served as President of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization and of the Belgian IBD Research and Development Group.

Dr. Salter-Cid, Ph.D., is the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Pioneering Medicines, where she is responsible for spearheading a portfolio of groundbreaking treatments. She was previously the CSO at Gossamer Bio and spent more than a decade at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS). At BMS, Dr. Salter-Cid served as Vice President and Head of Immunology, Small Molecule Immuno-Oncology, and Genomics Discovery, overseeing the development of therapeutics for autoimmune diseases and cancer.

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Dr. Littman, Ph.D., is the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel Professor of Molecular Immunology at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine of NYU Langone Medical Center and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical institute. Previously, he served as Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Littman is a scientific founder and a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Vedanta Biosciences and Immunai and is a member of the Pfizer Board of Directors. He serves on a number of other advisory boards, including ChemoCentryx, Inc., Vor Biopharma, the Broad Institute, the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, and the Whitehead Institute.

Dr. Richard M. Myers received his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Alabama in 1976, his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1982, and did his postdoctoral training at Harvard University. He joined the faculty of the UCSF Medical Center in 1985, then moved to Stanford University School of Medicine in 1993, where he was Professor and Chair in the Department of Genetics and Director of the Stanford Human Genome Center. In 2008, Dr. Myers became President, Science Director and a Faculty Investigator of the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, a non-profit research and teaching enterprise in Huntsville, Alabama. His research uses genomics to study how genes and their regulation affect a variety of human traits, including neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric disorders, diseases of the immune system, cancer, and childhood genetic disorders. Dr. Myers serves on several advisory panels and editorial boards for the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Canada Genome Enterprises, The Coalition for the Life Sciences, and several universities. He is an Associate Editor of the journal Genome Research. He serves as a science advisor to Decheng Capital, Pfizer and several biotech companies. With Dr. Sara Marsal, he is co-founder and science advisor of IMIDomics, Inc.

Dr. Julià has over 18 years of experience in the generation and analysis of high throughput omic data in IMIDs and leads IMIDomics’s data collection and generation, integration, and analysis.  

Dr. Julià is currently the head of the Rheumatology Research Group at the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute in Barcelona (Spain). He has led the first genome-wide association studies in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases in a Southern European population, identifying new susceptibility genes and associated biological pathways. He has extensive experience in translational research in IMIDs, authoring several studies in this area, and is a co-inventor of granted patents on treatment individualization. He has developed several bioinformatic approaches for the analysis of high-throughput data, improving state-of-the-art methods. He received a B.A. in Biology and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in 2010 from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Juan Harrison is a biotechnology and pharmaceutical executive focused on company formation, strategy, partnering, venture investment, and licensing transactions. He joined IMIDomics as CEO in 2020, is currently Chief Administrative Officer, and had previously provided advisory services to the company beginning in 2019.  Prior to IMIDomics, he was Vice President and Head of Strategic Academic Alliances at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for establishing several broad drug discovery alliances, including the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute (Weill Cornell Medicine, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center), the Alliance for Innovative Medicines (Stanford University), the Seattle Partnership for Research in Innovative Therapeutics (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, the University of Washington, and Seattle Children’s Hospital), and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He previously was VP at Takeda Ventures, where he invested in several companies, including Envoy Therapeutics, later acquired by Takeda. Mr. Harrison has been working in the biopharmaceutical industry since 1985 and has held senior positions in Alza Pharmaceuticals, Connetics, PowderJect, and XenoPort. He received a BS in Combined Science from Santa Clara University with an emphasis in Chemistry and Biochemistry.

Dr. Perez is Chief Development Officer for IMIDomics, Inc, and brings decades of operational leadership experience.  He collaborates closely with the IMIDomic’s research team to identify and prioritize targets for future development, plans and leads the development of medicines against these targets, and manages relationships with external partners to leverage necessary expertise and resources that drive the pipeline forward.

Prior to joining IMIDomics in 2021, Dr. Perez co-founded Naia Pharmaceuticals (US) and Naia Limited (a Cayman Islands company) and served as Executive Chairman. He was previously a venture partner at Bay City Capital. Earlier in his career, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Berlex Biosciences (the U.S. arm of Schering AG). He led R&D efforts in the United States, Berlin, and Kobe, initiated multiple clinical trials, and oversaw the execution of numerous collaborations, licensing deals, spinouts, and acquisitions until he left the company upon its acquisition by Bayer.

Dr. Perez has published extensively and has been elected to multiple scientific societies and nominated to the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Perez serves on the Board of Directors of Presidio Pharmaceuticals, the Scientific Advisory Board of Cardium, and the President’s Council for the Gladstone Institutes at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Previously, he was a member of the Board of Directors of BayBio, Cleveland Biolabs, Hyperion Therapeutics, and the Scientific Advisory Board for GSK, China.

He received his medical degree in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He completed his medical training at Beth Israel-Mount Sinai in New York and a fellowship in Rheumatology and Immunology at New York University. He served on the faculty at New York University as an Assistant Professor of Medicine and at UCSF as a Professor of Medicine before joining the pharmaceutical industry.

Ms. Vuong is Chief Financial Officer at IMIDomics, joining the company in November 2020. In this role, she manages the financial and treasury operations, accounting and tax reporting, and human resources, among other things, for the US headquarters and the Barcelona establishment.

She has been serving as Chief Financial Officer for Bay City Capital since 2010, a leading life sciences Venture Capital firm, where she manages all aspects of accounting and tax for their VC Funds and their Management Companies. Prior to that, Ms. Vuong was an Assistant Controller at Spectrum Equity, a Senior Accountant at Episcopal Homes Foundation, an Office Manager/Accountant at Anderegg Builders, and an Accounting Assistant at A.G. Spanos Construction. Ms. Vuong brings over 25 years of experience across corporate accounting, treasury, tax, audit, and internal controls. She received a B.S. in Business Administration, with an emphasis in accounting, at the University of the Pacific.

Dr. López-Figueroa is the Chief Operating Officer at IMIDomics, where he oversees the company's day-to-day administrative and operational functions.  Dr. López-Figueroa brings deep entrepreneurial experience to IMIDomics’s leadership.  As Managing Director at Bay City Capital since 2001, he started several innovative companies in the Bay City Capital portfolio, including BrainCells Inc. and Synchronicity Pharmaceuticals. Dr. López-Figueroa was involved in many successful investments, including Ion Torrent Systems (acquired by Life Technologies), NextWave Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer), and Civitas (acquired by Acorda Therapeutics).

In addition, Dr. López-Figueroa is the Scientific Liaison for the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium, a collaborative research enterprise comprised of a group of leaders in psychiatry, neuroscience, and genetics from Stanford University, University of Michigan, Cornell University, HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotech, and the University of California at Irvine.

Dr. López-Figueroa has over 25 years of experience in the field of neuroscience, has won numerous awards during his academic research career, and has published extensively. He completed post-doctoral work at the University of Michigan and at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Dr. López-Figueroa received a Ph.D. in Medicine and Surgery and an MS in Molecular and Cell Biology from the Universities of Las Palmas and La Laguna, Spain, respectively.

Dr. López-Figueroa serves on the boards of Oryzon Genomics (ORY.MC) and Cantero Therapeutics (a BridgeBio’s Pharma (BBIO) subsidiary). He is an investment advisor to Nina Capital.

Mr. Zweifach joined IMIDomics as President and CBO in 2022, having advised the company leadership since the company’s inception.  He brings decades of life-science operational, financial, transactional, and investment leadership to the company.

Mr. Zweifach is a senior executive with 30 years in the life sciences industry. Most recently, he was Chair of Palladio Biosciences and Janpix, which were merged into Centessa Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CNTA), a company created by Medicxi through the merger of 10 private biotech companies. He is also the Chair of Carisma Therapeutics, the Executive Chair of Kaerus Biosciences, a Non-Executive Board Member of Compugen, Board Member of Essa Pharma, and advisor to several life science companies across several therapeutic areas. He has shepherded the growth of several significant life sciences companies, including serving as co-founder and CEO of Nuvelution Pharma, Inc, and as co-founder and CEO of Ascendancy Healthcare, Inc. Mr. Zweifach was previously Managing Director and CFO of Bay City Capital.

Professor Marsal co-founded IMIDomics and laid the foundation of the company’s technology through her work with the IMID Consortium and the Vall d'Hebron University Hospital (HUVH).  She has performed pioneering studies in genomics of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) that were published in top-tier journals in biomedical research. Using high throughput molecular analysis approaches, she has identified new molecular profiles associated with diagnosis and treatment response in this group of diseases. Since 2006, she has been the director of the IMID Consortium, a network of 90+ reference clinical researchers in rheumatology, dermatology, and gastroenterology that is devoted to the discovery of new clinically useful biomarkers through multi-omic approaches. She also directs the IMID-Biobank, a large unique sample collection of >15,000 patients from the most prevalent IMID diseases. Professor Marsal serves on a variety of advisory panels from the pharmacological and biotechnological sectors. She is also a co-founder and science advisor of IMIDomics. Recently she has been appointed as a coordinator in a large H2020 European grant on combinatorial therapies in IMIDs using systems approaches.

Dr. Marsal graduated in Medicine and Surgery from Navarra University in 1985, after which she completed her Ph.D. at Barcelona University in 1990. In 2000, she started the Rheumatology Research Group in HUVH, a translational research lab on IMIDs. Since 2012, she has been an associate Professor of Rheumatology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain. Professor Marsal is currently the head of the rheumatology department at the HUVH.

Dr. Craves is the Executive Chairman and CEO of IMIDomics and has been involved in the company since it was founded. He was formerly the Founder of Bay City Capital life science investment firm.

As a leader in healthcare venture capital, Dr. Craves brings both scientific skills and deep operational expertise to the companies in which he invests. This allows him to source outstanding investment opportunities and to support exceptional management teams in creating value. He has been associated with some of the most significant exits in the biopharmaceutical industry, including Reliant Pharmaceuticals, a company he founded then sold to GlaxoSmithKline in 2007 in the single largest all-cash transaction for a venture-backed biotech company at that time. Today, Dr. Craves brings decades of experience to the leadership of IMIDomics.

Dr. Craves has been named to the Forbes Midas List, which recognizes the most successful investors in the venture capital asset class across both the technology and healthcare industries. He currently serves on the Boards of IMIDomics, Inc., Madrigal Pharmaceuticals, and Synchronicity Pharma. Previous investments and board participation, in addition to Reliant Pharmaceuticals, include Medarex, Inc., Incyte Biosciences, Dermira Pharmaceuticals, Twist Bioscience and Ion Torrent. He earned a BS in Biology from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of California, San Francisco.