Industry Experts

John earned his bachelor’s degree from Menlo College, an MS from Stanford University and both a MS and PhD from MD Anderson Cancer Center where he discovered that IL-10 directly activates anti-tumor CD8+ T cells. John completed post-doctoral work at DNAX Research Institute and became a Scientist at Schering Plough where he developed PEGylated IL-10 (AM0010) as an immunoncology asset. He then founded Targenics, later merged with ARMO Biosciences (briefly a publicly traded company), to clinically develop AM0010 and other immune oncology assets. ARMO Biosciences was acquired by Eli Lilly in 2018 for a $1.6B up front deal. As a founder and Senior Director of Technical Operations at ARMO, John led the manufacturing and pre-clinical research teams.

John served as the Director of Immunoncology R&D at Medimmune LLC and is the author of 28 manuscripts and 52 granted or pending patents. At Medimmune John developed diverse projects involving innate and T cell agonists, CART and other cell therapy projects and novel immunostimulatory antibody drug conjugates. John has most recently founded Deka Biosciences, the next generation cytokine company created to solve the challenges associated with harnessing the massive potential of cytokine therapy. With the challenges in developing T cell engagers and cell therapy programs, it is likely that cytokine combinations coupled with targeting modalities administered in conjunction with precision patient selection will be clear value drivers for the pharmaceutical industry for years to come.