Building tomorrow's antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs)

Dr. Martin Behe Co-founder

Martin Behe received his PhD in anorganic chemistry at the University of Basel. He worked at the University Hospitals in Göttingen, Marburg and Freiburg in Germany where he established a group for peptide-based radiopharmaceuticals and its production. Since 2011, Martin Behe leads the Pharmacology group at PSI, where the Araris Linker Technology took its first steps. He has an extensive background in peptide chemistry, peptide labelling and conjugation as well and critically contributed to development of radio-labelled compounds that are used in the clinic. 

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Dr. Rakesh Dixit

Rakesh Dixit is an accomplished executive, inventor, and scientist with over 30 years of success with top biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Medimmune - AstraZeneca. Rakesh was selected by his biopharmaceutical peers as the 100 Most Inspiring People in the Pharmaceutical Industry by PharmaVOICE in 2015. From 2006 to 2019, Rakesh was a Global Vice President of the Biologics R&D at Medimmune - AstraZeneca, where he was a pivotal contributor to the approval of Imfinzi (anti-PD-L1 mAb) for the treatment of lung and bladder cancer; Fasenra (anti-IL-5R afucsolytated mAb) for asthma; Brodalumab (anti-IL-17) in collaboration with Amgen for Psoriasis and Moxetumomab pseudotox (anti-CD22-PEA immunotoxin) for hairy cell leukemia. Rakesh has unique expertise in the development of biologics (e.g., monoclonal antibodies, bispecific biologics, antibody-drug conjugates, fusion proteins, peptides, gene and cell therapies, etc.) and small-molecule biopharmaceuticals. His areas of expertise include discovery, early and late preclinical development, safety assessment, DMPK and translational sciences.

Dr. John Lambert

John Lambert joined ImmunoGen Inc. in 1987 and played an important role in translating the technology of ImmunoGen into antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) clinical development programs. These efforts ultimately led to Kadcyla®, one of the first ADCs that was approved by the FDA as well as many additional ADC programs that continue to be developed by ImmunoGen and its partners.  He is the author/co-author of more than 120 peer-reviewed scientific publications. In 2016, Dr. Lambert was elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). Prior to joining ImmunoGen, he served as Assistant Professor of Pathology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute of the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Lambert holds a PhD in Biochemistry from University of Cambridge in England and completed his postdoctoral work at the University of California at Davis and Glasgow University in Scotland.

Professor Dr. Roger Schibli Co-founder

Roger Schibli received his PhD in organic chemistry at the University of Basel, followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Since 2010, Roger Schibli holds a full professorship at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences (ETH Zurich) and heads the Center for Radiopharmaceutical Sciences ETH-PSI-USZ. Roger Schibli pioneered the use of transglutaminases for the site-specific modification of antibodies in his labs at PSI and ETH Zurich more than 10 years ago and is author of many key scientific publications in that area of research. He supports us with his in-dept knowledge about enzymatic modifications of antibodies as well as linker design which is core to the Araris Linker Technology. 

Dr. Jeff Sharman

Jeff Sharman is a hematologist/oncologist who leads the hematologic malignancy clinical research program for US Oncology.  He has been engaged in drug development for lymphoid malignancies including multiple BCR signaling inhibitors, immunotherapies, and antibody drug conjugates He has served as global primary investigator on many trials and has over 60 publications focused on novel therapeutics.  He completed his fellowship at Stanford University where he was among the first to propose using BCR signaling antagonists for b cell malignancies and helped lead the initial studies of ibrutinib.  He completed his medical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital – part of Harvard University.

Dr. Clive Stanway

In recent times Clive Stanway has chosen to become an independent cancer drug discovery and development advisor. He is a non-executive director for Atelerix Ltd, CytoSeek Ltd and Babraham Bioscience Technologies and serves on the scientific advisory boards of 4Bio Capital and ANGLE plc in addition to his duties for Araris. 

Clive was trained as a scientist in cell and molecular biology at Imperial College and Oxford University rising to junior faculty status.  He transitioned into cancer drug discovery and development firstly at Xenova and then Prolifix and subsequently at Cancer Research UK where he established and led a team operating to pharmaceutical company standards.  Over his career he has been involved in projects which have matured from discovery status into clinical development.  For many years, Clive was part of the executive team in the commercial arm of Cancer Research UK and during that time it grew to have an interest in 4 drugs on the market and multimillion pound revenues.  He was also an intellectual property contributor to many cancer therapeutic and diagnostic start-up companies and significant driver in the initiation and completion of various deals in the pharmaceutical sector including companies such as Celgene and FORMA Therapeutics.  

Dr. Nathan Tumey

L. Nathan Tumey is an assistant professor of medicinal chemistry in the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Binghamton University.  He joined Binghamton University in 2017, following 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Between 2009 - 2017 he was a team leader for the ADC discovery efforts at Pfizer.  In this role, he led a group of bioconjugation and bioanalytical scientists that designed and synthesized antibody-drug conjugates for use in oncology applications. He received his PhD in chemistry from Duke University in 2001, under the supervision of Michael Pirrung. His research team at Binghamton University focuses on the application of antibody-drug conjugates and related technology for the treatment of auto-immune disorders and rare diseases. Additionally, his lab investigates bioconjugate stability, ADC linker design and new targeted drug-delivery modalities.