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

CEO

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
Lori Hansen
Head of Program Management
Steve Smith
Head of ADME/PK
Raj Dua, PhD
Head of CMC
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BOARD OF DIRECTORS
BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH

Co-Founder & Chairman

Kapil Dhingra, MBBS
Co-Founder & SAB Chairman
Takeshi Takahashi M.B.A.

Co-Founder & Board Member

Galym Imanbayev

Board Member

Gautam Patel

Board Member

Sandeep Gupta, PhD

Board Member

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PARTNERS

BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH ​

CEO

BT Slingsby is Founder and Managing Partner with Catalys Pacific. He co-founded Kirilys Therapeutics and currently serves as its CEO and Chairman. BT is a physician-scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur leading the company creation efforts for the firm. Prior to Catalys Pacific, he founded 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. In his role as CEO and Executive Director at the GHIT Fund, he deployed over 100 investments and grew the fund to $350M in capital.

BT graduated from Brown University with honors, earned his M.P.H. and Ph.D. from Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo, and received his M.D. 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. BT has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles on medicine and public health and currently lectures at the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University.

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, M.D.

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.

Lori Hansen

Head of Program Management

Lori Hansen is consultant with 30 years of drug development experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, specializing in Portfolio and Program Management. She has a special affinity for working with start-up/virtual and early-phase companies to create development plans to achieve their corporate objectives. She has a breadth of experience in drug development, including vaccines, small molecules, large molecules, and antibody drug conjugates (ADCs).

Prior to becoming a consultant in 2015, Lori most recently led the Program, Portfolio, and Alliance Management activities at Seattle Genetics during the period of development and commercialization for Adcetris, an ADC approved for the treatment of Hodgkin Lymphoma. Prior to that, she was the head of Corporate Project Management at Dendreon, which went on to receive approval for the first active cellular immunotherapy treatment, Provenge, approved to treat prostate cancer.

Lori graduated with a B.S in Microbiology from Washington State University, followed by A PhD at the University of California, Irvine, and post-doctoral work at UCSF.

In the area of oncology, she has been involved with the development of Provenge, Adcetris, the BLA submission for Immunomedics’ TRODELVY® (acquired by Gilead in 2020), and the recent submission of an IND for an immuno-oncology monoclonal antibody (currently in Phase 1).

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 & Chairman

BT Slingsby is Founder and Managing Partner with Catalys Pacific. He co-founded Kirilys Therapeutics and currently serves as its CEO and Chairman. BT is a physician-scientist and biotechnology entrepreneur leading the company creation efforts for the firm. Prior to Catalys Pacific, he founded 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. In his role as CEO and Executive Director at the GHIT Fund, he deployed over 100 investments and grew the fund to $350M in capital.

BT graduated from Brown University with honors, earned his M.P.H. and Ph.D. from Kyoto University and the University of Tokyo, and received his M.D. 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. BT has authored over 50 peer-reviewed articles on medicine and public health and currently lectures at the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tokyo and Kyoto University.

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 M.B.A.

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.

Galym Imanbayev

Co-founder

Dr. Galym Imanbayev joined Lightspeed in 2020 as a Partner focused on the Health sector. Galym’s interest in health is rooted in his childhood experiences growing up in Kazakhstan following his father on trips to rural towns to ensure medicine was accessible not only for those of privilege in the cities but to the underserved communities outside. Seeing the proper administration and power of medicine uplift entire communities drove Galym to pursue dual economics and pre-medical undergraduate studies, and later graduate with a dual MD/MBA degree from Stanford University School of Medicine and Graduate School of Business.

Galym’s interest in venture capital was first sparked by a cardiac diagnostic technology which he would eventually help lead investment in. While Galym had done research in cardiac imaging and studied economics as his major, the two fields always seemed like parallel paths with little crossover. Seeing the way the physician founder and his physician investors accelerated the scientific discoveries into tangible clinical products to help patients, Galym realized that healthcare venture capital is a unique bridge that merged his then parallel worlds of medical innovation and finance.

Before his graduate studies, Galym spent the majority of his time as an investor at Capricorn Healthcare & Special Opportunities. At Capricorn, he invested across a broad range of sectors and stages of companies, including diagnostics, health IT, provider, and senior health markets, including investments in Epic Systems, CPF Senior Living, and the aforementioned company, HeartFlow.

During his graduate school years, Galym spent time with Data Collective VC, Healthtech Capital, and Pear VC, and served as an advisor to several early-stage companies. Additionally, Galym was consulting faculty for Stanford Medicine X and served as the graduate representative on the Stanford University Board of Trustees. Outside of investment and strategy roles, Galym performed research in a number of labs, publishing peer-reviewed papers in gene therapy, stem cell biology, and medical imaging.

In his free time, Galym prioritizes spending time with family, loves to play pickup basketball, mentors students with disabilities as part of the Lime Connect Network, and serves on the board of the Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance.

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.