Board members

Tim Edwards

Chairman

Jerry McMahon, PhD

Chief Executive Officer & President

Christopher O’Donnell, PhD

Pfizer Venture Investments

Hakan Goker, PhD

M Ventures

Sakae Asanuma

Taiho Ventures, LLC

Professor Paul Workman, FRS, FMedSci

Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board

Professor Tony Kouzarides, PhD, FMedSci, FRS

Director & Founder

Tim Edwards

Chairman

Tim is Chair of Storm Therapeutics Ltd, EndLyz Therapeutics Inc., and a NED of AstronauTx Ltd. He is also Chair of Schroders UK Public Private Trust plc and Senior Independent Director of Record PLC, both listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.

Previously Tim was a Governing Board member of InnovateUK, the UK's Innovation agency, Non-Executive Director of the Cell & Gene Therapy Catapult; Chair of the UK BioIndustry Association.

In the past decade, he has led two companies to exit by trade sale: as Chair of Atopix Therapeutics Limited acquired by Chiesi Farmaceutici S.P.A. in 2016; and President and Chief Executive Officer of Cellzome Inc. acquired by GlaxoSmithKline plc in 2012.

Outside work, Tim plays tennis on Mondays, listens to jazz and opera, and with his wife is developing a scented garden.

Jerry McMahon, PhD

Chief Executive Officer & President

Jerry has over 30 years of biotechnology leadership, scientific innovation, creative deal-making, and financing experience. With broad disease-area expertise and a specialty in oncology therapeutics, Jerry has held scientific, pharmaceutical and venture capital positions and has been the CEO or President of multiple biotechnology companies leading novel therapeutic programs from discovery, development to drug approvals for internal and in-licensed products.

From 2016 to late 2021 Jerry was President and CEO of NASDAQ listed Harpoon Therapeutics building the Company from early stage through to IPO, follow-on financings, and development collaborations. Prior to that he held multiple positions, including President and CEO of Kolltan Pharmaceuticals which was acquired by Celldex, Innovative Medicine Head of Oncology and SVP at AstraZeneca-Medimmune, managing a more than $1 billion global R&D budget and President at SUGEN/Pfizer where he was instrumental in invention and full development of several ground-breaking protein kinase inhibitors including sunitinib (Sutent®).

Jerry has also held academic appointments at the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center at Yale University, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his BS in biology and PhD in the field of biochemistry and genetics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has authored over 100 scientific and medical publications and is an inventor on over 60 US patents.

Christopher O’Donnell, PhD

Pfizer Venture Investments

Christopher is Vice President, WRDM and Partner at Pfizer Ventures. Chris is responsible for identifying, evaluating, making and managing equity investments aligned with the future directions of Pfizer. He currently has responsibility for Pfizer’s investments in Adapsyn Bioscience, Arkuda Therapeutics, Arrakis Therapeutics, Kestrel Therapeutics, MindImmune, Mitokinin, Parthenon Therapeutics, Pyxis Oncology (PYXS), Storm Therapeutics, Strata Oncology and Triana Biomedicines. He is also responsible for managing our investment in the Mission BioCapital and Phoenix Venture Partners funds. His prior investment responsibilities include BioAtla (BCAB), Kymera Therapeutics (KYMR), Morphic Therapeutic (MORF) and Petra Pharma.

Chris brings 20+ years of scientific leadership, a strong track record of delivering clinical candidates across multiple disease areas and modalities, and proven ability to build and lead highly engaged teams. He built and led the Applied Synthesis Technologies group within R&D to help accelerate the delivery of Pfizer’s small molecule portfolio. Prior to that, Chris built and led Pfizer’s Antibody Drug Conjugate Oncology Medicinal Chemistry group which delivered new linker, payload and conjugation methods resulting in over 7 conjugates entering clinical development. Chris started his career in the Neuroscience Medicinal Chemistry group where he invented and helped deliver numerous clinical candidates.

Chris received his BS in Chemistry from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign and his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined Pfizer after completing post-doctoral studies at the University of California - Irvine

Hakan Goker, PhD

M Ventures

Hakan is Managing Director of M Ventures and heads the Biotechnology investments covering Healthcare and Life Sciences. Hakan joined M Ventures in 2013 and has been investing in the sector for 15 years. Previously, Hakan was a partner at Aescap Venture investing in European opportunities. Hakan started his investment career at Atlas Venture where he was part of the investment team in London focusing on global investment opportunities in healthcare and medical technologies across US, Europe and Asia. He was instrumental in the creation and financing, business and R&D strategies of multiple companies in their formation years including Orphazyme, Bicycle, Nimbus Discovery, and f-Star while at Aescap and Atlas. Hakan continues his active investing role and represents M Ventures on multiple portfolio companies. He comes from an academic background receiving his Ph.D. in oncology from the Institute of Cancer Research/ University of London, UK and continuing his scientific career with post doctoral work at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Centre/Royal Marsden Hospital. He gained his B.Sc. Hons, from University College London. Hakan is based in Amsterdam at the M Ventures head office.

Sakae Asanuma

Taiho Ventures, LLC

Sakae has been running Taiho Ventures as founding President and CEO since its inception of 2016. Prior to joining Taiho, he was President and CEO at Astellas Venture Management and US Head of Astellas Innovation Management in 2011-2015. Prior to Astellas, he worked for Yasuda Enterprise, a Japan/US-based VC firm in 2000-2011. He has invested in several dozens of biotech companies and majority of his portfolios achieved IPOs or M&AS. During his tenure at Taiho and Astellas, he led to execute dozens of research collaboration deals with academia and biotech ventures, including several build-to-buys or spinouts.

Professor Paul Workman, FRS, FMedSci

Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board

Paul Workman is the Harrap Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), London. Until August 2021, he served for seven years as Chief Executive and President of ICR, and for almost twenty years he was Director of ICR’s Cancer Research UK (CRUK) Cancer Therapeutics Unit – one of the world’s leading academic drug discovery organizations. In addition, Paul served as Founding Director of the CRUK Convergence Science Centre at ICR and Imperial College, and he is Co-Director of the CRUK Children’s Brain Tumour Centre of Excellence at ICR and Cambridge University. Paul is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society (the UK’s national academy of science), Academy of Medical Sciences, Royal Society of Chemistry, Royal Society of Biology, Royal Society of Medicine, and European Academy of Cancer Sciences, and he was awarded a CRUK Life Fellowship.

Paul Workman is renowned for his research on the molecular pharmacology of targeted cancer drugs and he has been instrumental in the discovery of multiple clinical candidates and chemical probes, including those acting on protein kinases, PI3 kinases, the molecular chaperone HSP90 and the Heat Shock Factor 1 pathway. He is also the originator of the widely used Pharmacological Audit Trail for biomarker-led drug discovery and development. In addition, Paul has played a leading role in the provision of public resources for biomedical research and drug discovery, specifically the Chemical Probes Portal (of which he is Executive Director, Probe Miner and canSAR.

Before joining ICR, Paul Workman spent four years in the cancer drug discovery leadership team at AstraZeneca, and prior to that worked at Glasgow and Cambridge Universities, with a sabbatical visit as a UICC Fellow to Stanford University and SRI International. Paul obtained his B.Sc. in Biological Sciences from the University of Leicester, UK, and his Ph.D. in Cancer Pharmacology from the University of Leeds, UK.

Paul is a serial scientific entrepreneur. He was a scientific founder of Piramed Pharma (acquired by Roche) and Chroma Therapeutics, is a Science Partner at Nextech Invest, has collaborated extensively with biotech and pharma companies, and serves as an adviser to several biotechs. As well as serving as a Non-Executive Director at STORM Therapeutics, Paul also chairs STORM’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Paul Workman has received numerous honours and awards, including the Royal Society of Chemistry George and Christine Sosnovsky Award for Cancer Therapy, Royal Society of Chemistry World Entrepreneur Award, CRUK Translational Cancer Research Prize, and the International Raymond Bourgine Award for Excellence in Cancer Research. In addition, Paul led the team that won the 2012 American Association of Cancer Research Team Science Award, and under his leadership the ICR was awarded a 2017 Queens’ Anniversary Prize for its world-leading research in cancer drug discovery leading to global patient impact. Paul lectures, writes and blogs about cancer research and drug discovery.

Professor Tony Kouzarides, PhD, FMedSci, FRS

Director & Founder

Tony is Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Cambridge and a group leader at the Gurdon Institute. He currently holds the following directorships: director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute, director of Cambridge Gravity and director of STORM Therapeutics.

Tony did his PhD at the University of Cambridge and postdoctoral work at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and New York University Medical Center. His research group at the Gurdon Institute is focused on epigenetic modifications and their involvement in cancer.

Tony is director and co-founder of the Milner Therapeutics Institute, which connects academia and industry, founder/director of Cambridge Gravity, an organization that supports early-career entrepreneurs, and founder/patron of “Vencer el Cancer,” a cancer charity in Spain. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Institute of Cancer Research (UK) and Foghorn Therapeutics (USA).

Tony is a co-founder and ex-director of Abcam plc, a publicly trading research reagents company in Cambridge, a co-founder and ex-director of Chroma Therapeutics, of a drug discovery company based in Oxford and a co-founder and current director of STORM Therapeutics, a drug discovery company based in Cambridge.

Tony has been elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization, Fellow of the British Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS), Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS), a fellow of the Cyprus Academy of Science, and is a Cancer Research UK Gibbs Fellow. He has been awarded the Wellcome Trust medal for research in biochemistry related to medicine (UK), the Tenovus Medal (UK), the Bodossaki Foundation prize in Biology (Greece), the Bijvoet Medal (Holland), the Biochemical Society Award (uk) , the Novartis Medal and Prize (UK), the Heinrich Wieland Prize (Germany), the Nemitsas Prize (Cyprus) and the Science Excellence award (Cyprus).