A Multi-Asset Precision Oncology Company

The Kirilys Team

We are an experienced and highly motivated team focused on improving the lives of patients with cancer through the development and improvement of therapeutic treatments.

Management

BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder

Steve Ritland, PhD, MBA

Head of Preclinical Development & Pharmacology

Alison L. Hannah, MD

Chief Medical Officer

Ashwin Ram, MD, MS

Chief Business Officer

Thomas D. Steele, PhD, MS

Head of Preclinical Safety & Toxicology

James Chrisman

Head of Program Management

Steve Smith

Head of ADME/PK

Raj Dua, PhD

Head of CMC

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH

Co-Founder & Executive Chairman

Kapil Dhingra, MBBS

Co-Founder & SAB Chairman

Takeshi Takahashi, MBA

Co-Founder & Board Member

Jonathan MacQuitty, PhD

Board Member

Gautam Patel

Board Member

Sandeep Gupta, PhD

Board Member

PARTNERS

BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH ​

Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder

BT Slingsby is Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Kirilys Therapeutics. He is also Founder and Managing Director with Catalys Pacific. He founded Catalys Pacific to transform life-sciences innovation using transpacific partnership. Dr. Slingsby leads the company creation efforts for the firm, having started Mineralys Therapeutics, Pathalys Pharma, Aculys Pharma, Renalys Pharma, Hepalys Pharma along with Kirilys as founding CEO and Executive Chairman. Prior to Catalys Pacific, he founded and served as CEO and Executive Director of the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund — the world’s first public-private fund focused on the development of new medicines for low- and middle-income countries.

BT graduated from Brown University with honors, earned his MPH and PhD from Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo, and received his MD with honors from the George Washington University. In recognition of his contributions to global health, he has been awarded a Foreign Ministry Commendation from the Government of Japan. His work has been featured in the Economist, Financial Times, CNBC Squawk Box, and the New York Times. BT is an author on over 50 peer-reviewed articles on medicine and public health, and formerly served as a Visiting Professor at Keio University, Kyoto University and Osaka University and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo.

Steve Ritland, PhD, MBA

Head of Preclinical Development & Pharmacology

Dr. Steve Ritland is the Head of Preclinical Development and Pharmacology at Kirilys Therapeutics and has 20+ years of leadership experience in pharmaceutical research and development with proven success in leading high performing, clinical stage drug development programs from IND to successful NDA/BLA/MAAs, lifecycle management, product approvals and launch. He has had a strong focus on creating and successfully executing therapeutic area and project-level strategy, in hematology, oncology, and inflammation / fibrosis. He brings practical drug development experience, including integration of cross-functional scientific, clinical, regulatory, supply chain, and commercial strategies, as well as leading partnered programs.

Prior to Kirilys, Steve was VP of Global Drug Development Hematology at BMS/Celgene where he was instrumental in 4 new molecular entity global approvals from 2017-2020 (IDHIFA, INREBIC, REBLOZYL, and ONUREG). Prior to BMS/Celgene, Steve was Executive Director of Pharma Business Oncology at Roche Pharmaceuticals. Steve received his PhD in cancer biology from the Mayo Clinic and his MBA from Columbia University Business School

Alison L. Hannah, MD

Chief Medical Officer
Alison L. Hannah, M.D., joined Kirilys as Chief Medical Officer in January 2023. Previously Dr. Hannah served as Chief Medical Officer for CytomX Therapeutics, working in conditionally activated proteins. Dr. Hannah has over 30 years’ experience in the development of investigational cancer chemotherapies, serving as a consultant to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. In this capacity, Dr. Hannah has successfully filed over 40 regulatory applications for First-in-Human oncology clinical testing and has played significant roles in the broad marketing approval of 8 successful New Drug / Biologics License Applications. Prior to this, she worked as Senior Medical Director at SUGEN on various compounds, including sunitinib approved in kidney cancer/GIST, and Quintiles (now IQVIA), a global Contract Research Organization. Dr. Hannah received her B.A. in biochemistry and immunology from Harvard University and her medical degree from the University of Saint Andrews. She is a member of ASCO, AACR, ASH, ESMO and a Fellow with the Royal Society of Medicine. Dr. Hannah serves on the Board of Directors for Neogenomics (a cancer diagnostic company) and Rigel Therapeutics (an immunology/oncology company).

Ashwin Ram, MD, MS​

Chief Business Officer

Ashwin is a physician-scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur who serves as Chief Business officer of Kirilys Therapeutics, Co-Founder and SVP Operations at Pathalys Pharma, and Partner at Catalys Pacific. Ashwin is also the Founder and Chair of Axelys, Inc. and Jupiter Therapeutics, Inc. Prior to this, he was a part of Genentech’s Early Clinical Development – Oncology team and practiced as a board-certified radiation oncologist.

Ashwin completed his MD at the University of Michigan Medical School with highest honors and Dean’s distinction in research. After training in radiation oncology at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he completed an MS in bioengineering at Caltech and a postdoc at Stanford University as an NCI Cancer Translational Nanotechnology fellow.

Thomas D. Steele, PhD, MS​

Head of Preclinical Safety & Toxicology

Dr. Steele is President/CEO of Nonclinical Safety Solutions, LLC, a consulting firm that provides scientific services and strategic advice on nonclinical safety testing to the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Steele earned his MS and PhD in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Purdue University, and received postdoctoral training at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine, mainly focusing on neurotoxic mechanisms of recreational and abused drugs.

Dr. Steele has over 25 years of experience within the pharmaceutical industry, including work at the US FDA as Pharmacology/Toxicology reviewer for Neuropharmacological Drug Products, where was responsible for the review of over 50 US INDs at FDA, and was the primary nonclinical pharmacology/toxicology reviewer for the FDA approvals of Mirapex, Tasmar, Comtan, and Maxalt.

During his career in industry, Dr Steele designed and conducted the nonclinical toxicology/safety assessment programs to support over an estimated 50 research projects that have successfully entered human testing across a wide range of therapeutic areas including oncology, diabetes, neuroscience, inflammation, virology. Dr Steele has authored or co-authored the nonclinical sections of numerous successful regulatory applications, and peer-reviewed publications. At Hoffmann-LaRoche, Dr. Steele led an integrated team of toxicologists and pharmacokineticists to shepherd several Discovery and Development Oncology Projects from Early Research into the clinic. As Head of Toxicology at ImClone, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly, Dr Steele oversaw the nonclinical safety assessment of a range of monoclonal antibodies specific for oncology targets including VEGF, EGFR and TGF-β receptors, and was the primary author of the nonclinical pharmacology/toxicology dossier for the successful marketing authorization of Cyramza for solid tumors. As Director of Preclinical Safety at Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Dr Steele independently led the nonclinical safety evaluation of novel small molecular weight tyrosine kinase inhibitors for oncologic indications and developed the nonclinical safety strategy to address clinical and regulatory questions arising from adverse post-marketing experiences of an approved therapeutic (i.e., ponatinib).

As an independent consultant, Dr Steele provides scientific guidance and leadership for the safety evaluation of both large and small molecular weight therapeutics for mainly small biotech companies in the oncology space.

James Chrisman

Head of Program Management

James Chrisman is a Clinical Operations consultant with over 13 years of drug development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. James has spent most of his career managing and leading early phase oncology studies in Clinical Operations. His experience includes antibody drug conjugates, gene therapies, small molecules, biologics, and medical devices. His expertise spans all aspects and phases of clinical trial planning, initiation, and execution. James has also served as a cross-functional project manager for clinical stage programs.
James joined Kirilys Therapeutics as a consultant in October 2022. Prior to becoming a consultant in earlier 2022, James was a Clinical Trial Manager at Gilead Sciences where he led a number of early phase oncology programs (solid tumors) and Phase 3 Idelalisib (CLL) and Trodelvy (breast cancer) studies. James’ previous experience also involves work in the fields of medical devices, CRO pathology lab, and pre-clinical GLP CRO.

James graduated with a B.A. in Behavioral Neuroscience from Western Washington University, followed by a M.S. in Biomedical Regulatory Affairs at the University of Washington.

Steve Smith

Head of ADME/PK

Steve has over 40 years of drug development experience and has been a consultant for large number of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, private equity, and strategic consulting companies in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Israel, China, Japan, and Australia. He has experience with FDA, EMA and other agencies, a wide variety of indications such as oncology, central nervous system, inflammation, pain, virology, respiratory, genitourinary, rare diseases, and technical expertise in drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, bioanalysis, lead optimization, time-dependent inhibition, mechanism of toxicity, prediction of human pharmacokinetics, clinical pharmacology, drug interactions, dose selection for clinical trials, pediatric trials, health authority questions, removing clinical holds, and IND, NDA, CTA, MAA preparation.

Prior to consulting, Steve was head of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics at Roche Palo Alto and head of Nonclinical Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics at UCB Pharma in Braine-l’Alleud, Belgium.

Recently, Steve was deeply involved in the NDA approvals of VITRAKVI (larotrectinib) and RETEVMO (selpercatinib), working with both compounds starting at the preclinical stage.

Raj Dua, PhD

Head of CMC

Raj Dua, PhD serves as Kirilys Therapeutics’ CMC advisor. Dr. Dua has previously served as CMC advisor and an independent consultant for several smaller and virtual biotechnology companies and helped in establishing CMC strategy, process development, scale up and overall product development from early stage to commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Previously, Dr. Dua held a senior management role at Resolve Bio, Alder Biopharmaceuticals, Trubion Pharmaceuticals and Xcyte Therapies, where he played a key role in development, scale up and commercialization of products related to autologous cell therapy, monoclonal antibodies, fusion proteins and peptides.

Dr. Dua received a PhD from the University of Georgia in the field of Medicinal chemistry and pursued postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Raj was instrumental to successful development of the following oncology compounds:

1. Xcellerate™ – Multiple myeloma
2. Anti-CD20 (TRU-015) – Breast Cancer
3. Anti-CD37 (TRU-020) – CLL
4. Ad35 – CEA (ETBX-011) – Colon Cancer
5. 20+ molecules as consultant

BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH ​

Co-Founder & Executive Chairman

BT Slingsby is Chief Executive Officer & Co-Founder of Kirilys Therapeutics. He is also Founder and Managing Director with Catalys Pacific. He founded Catalys Pacific to transform life-sciences innovation using transpacific partnership. Dr. Slingsby leads the company creation efforts for the firm, having started Mineralys Therapeutics, Pathalys Pharma, Aculys Pharma, Renalys Pharma, Hepalys Pharma along with Kirilys as founding CEO and Executive Chairman. Prior to Catalys Pacific, he founded and served as CEO and Executive Director of the Global Health Innovative Technology (GHIT) Fund — the world’s first public-private fund focused on the development of new medicines for low- and middle-income countries.

BT graduated from Brown University with honors, earned his MPH and PhD from Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo, and received his MD with honors from the George Washington University. In recognition of his contributions to global health, he has been awarded a Foreign Ministry Commendation from the Government of Japan. His work has been featured in the Economist, Financial Times, CNBC Squawk Box, and the New York Times. BT is an author on over 50 peer-reviewed articles on medicine and public health, and formerly served as a Visiting Professor at Keio University, Kyoto University and Osaka University and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Tokyo.

Kapil Dhingra, MBBS

Co-Founder & SAB Chairman

Dr. Dhingra is a medical oncologist and a physician-scientist with a proven track record in academic research, patient care, and drug development. He served as Vice President, Head of the Oncology Disease Biology Leadership Team and Head of Oncology Clinical Development at Hoffmann-La Roche (“Roche”), during which he led numerous drug approvals, including Herceptin®, Tarceva®, and Avastin®. Prior to joining Roche, he worked in the oncology clinical development group at Eli Lilly and Company. Dr. Dhingra has served as a faculty member at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Indiana University School of Medicine, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Dhingra is currently a member of the Boards of Directors of LAVA Therapeutics, Black Diamond Therapeutics, Inc., Replimune, Inc., Autolus Therapeutics plc, and Median Technologies, and he has previously served on the boards of several successful biotech companies, including Biovex, Micromet, Algeta, YM Biosciences, Epitherapeutics, Advanced Accelerator Applications, Exosome Diagnostics, and, Five Prime Therapeutics. He is a member of the NCI Experimental Therapeutics Panel. Dr. Dhingra founded KAPital Consulting, LLC in 2008, a company dedicated to helping biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and diagnostic companies realize the clinical and commercial advances in oncology. Dr. Dhingra obtained his M.B.B.S. degree from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, India. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center, New York Medical College and completed his fellowship in hematology and oncology at Emory University School of Medicine.

Dr. Dhingra played a leadership role in the development of the following drugs:

As Head of Roche Oncology:
Herceptin
Rituxan/MabThera
Avastin
Xeloda
Zelboraf
Perjeta

As a member of BoD of biotechs:
Blincyto
Xofigo
Imlygic
Lutathera

Takeshi Takahashi, MBA

Co-Founder & Board Member

Takeshi Takahashi is a Managing Partner with Catalys Pacific. He holds extensive experience in M&As, IPOs, and financing in the healthcare sector. Prior to Catalys Pacific, he worked for the investment banking division of Morgan Stanley for 12 years and played a significant role in over 30 distinguished transactions including, but not limited to, Japanese companies’ acquisitions of U.S. listed companies with an enterprise value of over US$10.0 billion, acquisitions of global healthcare companies with an enterprise value of over US$5.0 billion, and a number of alternative financing transactions. Prior to working for Morgan Stanley, Takeshi was an analyst and a portfolio manager for global and Japan fixed income and managed a $3.0+ billion portfolio in Japan and the U.S. at Merrill Lynch’s asset management division.

Takeshi graduated from Waseda University with a degree in Political Science and Economics, and holds an M.B.A. from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Proficiently bilingual and bicultural.

Jonathan MacQuitty, PhD

Board Member

Jonathan currently serves as Advisor with Catalys Pacific, Venture Partner with Lightspeed Venture Partners, and CEO of D2G Oncology, an oncology biotech start-up recently spun out of Stanford University.

Prior to his current positions, Jonathan served as CEO of Forty Seven, an immuno-oncology company that completed a $113 million IPO in 2018, from its inception until 2017. From 1999 to 2014, he was a Partner at Abingworth Management. Between 1988 until its acquisition 10 years later, he was founding CEO of GenPharm International. He began his career as a business development executive at Genencor and Genentech.

Other board directorships have included Acorda (now NASDAQ), Dicerna (now NASDAQ), Guava (acquired), Labcyte (acquired), Myelos (acquired), Orca, ParAllele BioScience (acquired), Personalis, Quantum Dot (acquired), SFJ Pharma, Sosei (listed in Tokyo), and Sunesis (listed on NASDAQ). He has also served on the Board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

Jonathan holds an M.A. in Chemistry from Oxford University, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Sussex, and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

Gautam Patel

Board Member

Mr. Patel has been Managing Director of Tarsadia Investments, a private investment firm based in Newport Beach, California, since 2012. In that role, Mr. Patel has led a team of investment professionals to identify, evaluate and execute principal control over equity investments across sectors including life sciences, financial services and technology. Prior to joining Tarsadia, Mr. Patel served as Managing Director at Lazard from 2008 to 2012, where he led financial and strategic advisory efforts in sectors including transportation and logistics, private equity, and healthcare. Prior to that, Mr. Patel served in a variety of advisory roles at Lazard from 1999 to 2008, including multiple restructuring, bankruptcy and corporate reorganization assignments in 2001 and 2008. From 1994 to 1997, Mr. Patel was an Analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, where he worked on M&A as well as high-yield and equity financings. Mr. Patel is currently a Board Member of Spectrum Brands Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: SPB), Amneal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE: AMRX) and several private companies including Asana Biosciences and Prolong Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Patel also serves on the board of Casita Maria Center for Arts & Education, a New York based non-profit organization that aims to empower children through arts-based education. Mr. Patel received a Bachelor of Art degree from Claremont McKenna College, a Bachelor of Science degree from Harvey Mudd College, an MSc from the London School of Economics and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Sandeep Gupta, PhD

Board Member

Dr. Sandeep Gupta is the Founder, President and CEO of Asana BioSciences. Under Dr. Gupta’s leadership, Asana BioSciences has filed seven (7) successful INDs for NCEs and biologics, demonstrated clinical proof of concept for multiple programs in therapeutic areas of oncology (4) and immunology (2), held successful interactions with the FDA and advanced its lead asset, gusacitinib, towards Phase 3 clinical development. From September 2019 – March 2021, Dr. Gupta was also the CEO of Prolong Pharmaceuticals, a clinical stage company based in NJ, leading development of a novel blood product for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke and other hypoxic conditions. Dr. Gupta has raised >$250M in private financing for Asana and monetized/out-licensed multiple pipeline assets (Gusactininb, ASN004, ASN007, ASN008).

Previously, Dr. Gupta was the Senior Vice-President of Discovery and Early Development, Endo Pharmaceuticals, Malvern, PA (2008-2014) and Head of Drug Discovery and Pharmacology at Forest Laboratories, NY, USA (1998-2008). Dr. Gupta played a key role in the development and commercialization of several block buster drugs during his tenures at Forest and Endo (Celexa, Lexapro, Namenda, Benicar, Bystolic, Savella, Lidoderm, Fortesta, Aveed). He also held academic positions at the Univ of Pennsylvania and Boston Univ Schools of Medicine (1992-1998).

Dr. Gupta received his Bachelor and Master of Pharmaceutical Sciences degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University, India and Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Northeastern University, Boston. He is a co-inventor on >20 patents and has authored >50 scientific papers and book chapters.