Who we are
At Soteria Biotherapeutics, we are developing a next generation of bispecific T-cell engagers to treat patients with solid tumor cancers. Soteria’s highly innovative T-LITE™ platform provides small molecule-dependent activation of bispecific antibody therapies, enabling safer and more efficacious treatments through pulsatile activity, reduced side effects and higher dosing. Our mission is to safely harness the body’s natural immune system to defeat cancer and transform patients’ lives.
The company was founded in 2018 by Jim Wells, PhD, renowned protein engineer and professor at UC San Francisco, Zachary Hill, PhD, and Alexander Martinko, PhD. The company has exclusively licensed technology from UC San Francisco based on the work of Drs. Wells, Hill and Martinko.
LEADERSHIP
Kristine Ball
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERBhas Dani, MS, PhD
SVP, CHIEF TECHNICAL OFFICER
Zachary Hill, PhD
SVP, CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER
AND CO-FOUNDER
Mohammad Tabrizi, PhD
VP, PRECLINICAL DEVELOPMENT
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Steven James
BOARD CHAIR
David Allison, PhD
Kristine Ball
Zachary Hill, PhD
Therese Maria Liechtenstein, PhD
Nisha Marathe, PhD
Aaron Nelson, MD, PhD
Momo Wu, PhD
SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Jim Wells, PhD
SAB CHAIR, CO-FOUNDER
Mike Briskin, PhD
Brian Daniels, MD
Larry Fong, MD
Peter Kim, PhD
Henry Lowman, PhD
Art Weiss, MD, PhD
INVESTORS
Kristine M. Ball joined Soteria in 2020 as Chief Executive Officer and brings over 25 years of experience in the life-sciences industry. Most recently, Ms. Ball served as Senior Vice President of corporate strategy and Chief Financial Officer of Menlo Therapeutics, Inc. from 2017 through Menlo’s merger with Foamix, Inc. in March 2020. At Menlo, Ms. Ball was responsible for leading all administrative functions including strategic planning, corporate development, commercial, human resources, legal, finance and IT. She led Menlo’s initial public offering and the cross-functional team responsible for the merger with Foamix.
Prior to joining Menlo, Ms. Ball served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Relypsa, Inc. from 2012 through the company’s acquisition in 2016 by Vifor Pharma for $1.5 billion. At Relypsa, Ms. Ball led the company’s initial public offering and the cross-functional team responsible for the merger with Vifor, and was a member of the senior team responsible for the launch and commercialization of its lead candidate, patiromer (US brand name Veltassa®). Prior to Relypsa, Ms. Ball served as SVP, Finance and Administration and CFO of KAI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (acquired by Amgen) and Vice President, Finance at Exelixis, Inc.
Ms. Ball serves as a member of the board of directors of Atreca, Inc. and also served on the board of directors of Forty Seven Inc. prior to the company’s acquisition by Gilead in 2020. Ms. Ball holds a B.S. from Babson College.
Bhas Dani, MS, PhD, joined Soteria in 2021, as SVP, Chief Technical Officer bringing over 20 years of experience in CMC development and manufacturing of biologics and small molecules. Most recently, Dr. Dani led the Biologics Product Development function at AbbVie (Allergan) and was responsible for all aspects of drug product development for their biologics portfolio. Prior to joining AbbVie, Dr. Dani led the Pharmaceutical Development function at Novartis where he was responsible for biologic drug product development from candidate selection through clinical development and product commercialization. Prior to Novartis, Dr. Dani served in positions of increasing responsibility at Nektar Therapeutics and Chiron Corporation. Dr. Dani has led development of new biologic products through all phases of clinical development and successfully guided them through licensure (BLA and MAA). His experience includes developing a wide range of biologic modalities such as peptides, proteins, monoclonal antibodies, bi-specifics, antibody drug conjugates, complex toxins, viruses for gene therapy and bacteria for microbiome. Dr. Dani has made many original scientific contributions to the fields of pharmaceutical sciences and biotechnology including authoring and reviewing numerous publications in international journals and as an inventor on patent applications. Dr. Dani received his Masters in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Auburn University and his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University of Kentucky.
Zachary B. Hill, PhD, is SVP, Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of Soteria, bringing over 15 years of scientific research experience. In this role, he oversees the company’s discovery research activities and leads scientific strategy. Prior to founding Soteria, Dr. Hill was a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF, where he co-invented Soteria’s LITE Switch technology. While at UCSF he was a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow, as well as the recipient of a NIH K99/R00 Transition Award from the NCI. Dr. Hill received his bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Washington, where he worked on the development of bivalent inhibitors of protein kinases. His research experience has been focused on the interface of proteins and small molecules, with an emphasis on developing novel therapeutics.
Mo (Mohammad) Tabrizi, PhD, joined Soteria in 2021, bringing over 25 years of experience in basic research, integrative pharmacology, translational sciences, and development of protein-based biologics. Prior to joining Soteria, Dr. Tabrizi served in positions with increasing responsibilities at companies such as Ascendis Pharma, Merck Research Laboratories, AstraZeneca/Medimmune, and Abgenix. His product development experience spans many therapeutic areas including oncology, immune-oncology, and inflammatory diseases. He has been an author or co-inventor on more than 50 original papers, reviews, book chapters, published books and patents. Dr. Tabrizi has been an invited speaker to numerous national and international conferences. Dr. Tabrizi received his bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from University of Houston (Summa Cum Laude) and his PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from University at Buffalo, State University of New York . He completed a postdoctoral training in Pharmacology, with a focus on therapeutics, at University of New York at Buffalo.
Steven P. James has over 30 years of biopharmaceutical experience and has been involved in building and leading numerous successful companies and the discovery and development of important approved drug products. Currently, Mr. James is Chief Executive Officer and Director of Pionyr Immunotherapeutics. Previously, he was President and CEO of Labrys Biologics until it was acquired by Teva Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Labrys, Mr. James was President and CEO of KAI Pharmaceuticals which was acquired by Amgen. He has held leadership positions at Exelixis, Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Ionis Pharmaceuticals, and began his career at Eli Lilly. He holds a Masters in Management from the Kellogg School of Northwestern University and an undergraduate degree in neuroscience from Brown University. He serves as a trustee of Middlebridge School in Rhode Island. Mr. James is currently Chairman of Antiva Biosciences and Director of Allakos Inc and Ventus Therapeutics. He was formerly a Director of Ocera Inc. (acquired by Mallinkrodt) and Cascadian Therapeutics (acquired by Seattle Genetics).
David Allison, PhD joined 5AM Ventures in 2016 and is a partner in the San Francisco office. Previously, Dr. Allison was a Principal at Versant Ventures where he was involved in the firm’s investments in both North America and Europe. Prior to Versant, Dr. Allison worked with the healthcare team at Split Rock Partners and PTV Healthcare Capital. Dr. Allison received his PhD in Bioengineering from Rice University with a focus on the extracellular matrix in cardiovascular disease. He received a B.S.E. in Biomedical Engineering from The University of Iowa.
Therese Maria Liechtenstein, PhD is a Principal in the Biotech Fund of M
Ventures, the strategic corporate venture capital arm of EMD Serono. Dr. Liechtenstein is responsible for investments in early-stage therapeutics and life science companies. Previously she managed strategic projects for EMD Serono at the headquarter in Darmstadt, Germany. Prior to EMD Serono, Dr. Liechtenstein was a client relationship manager for the wealth preservation company Industrie- & Finanzkontor. Dr. Liechtenstein received her PhD in Immuno-Oncology from University College London, an MSc in Biomedical
Sciences from the University of Amsterdam, and a BA in Biology and Business studies from New York University.
Nisha Marathe, PhD, joined the Roche Venture Fund in 2016. Prior to RVF, she was an associate with Mission Bay Capital and Business Manager at QB3@953, a life-sciences incubator based in San Francisco. Dr. Marathe completed her post-doctoral training at UCSF where she also worked as a Technology Analyst with the Office of Technology Management. She holds a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from UCSD and received her bachelor’s degree from UCLA, graduating cum laude and with College Honors. Dr. Marathe currently holds board positions at Freenome, Kumquat Biosciences, Maculogix, Jasper Therapeutics, and Second Genome. She formerly held board positions at Care Innovations, Ideaya, Syapse, and Vaxcyte.
Aaron Nelson, MD, PhD is a Managing Director at the Novartis Venture Fund in Cambridge, MA, USA. Prior to joining NVF, he was an investor at dRx Capital, the joint investment company of Novartis and Qualcomm, focused on Digital Medicine. Previously, Dr. Nelson worked on technology strategy across multiple Business Units within Novartis, including Strategic Project Leader for the Trials of The Future program and Group Head in the Investigative Toxicology organization. Dr. Nelson studied medicine at Tufts University, cell and microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania and the Karolinska Institutet, and completed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University.
MoMo Wu, PhD, has 10 years of experience in the biotech industry focusing on investment and business development. She is an investment portfolio manager at Emerson Collective, focusing on early-stage pharmaceutical and diagnostic investments. Previously Dr. Wu was at the McKinsey & Co. Silicon Valley Office working on Pharma and Medtech global strategy and pipeline prioritizations. She also spent time at Taiwan Global Biofund, which invested in early-stage biotech companies in both Asia and the United States. Dr. Wu holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Science and Pharmacogenomics from UCSF, specializing in pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic research, and a BS in Biochemistry from National Taiwan University.
James A. Wells, PhD, is a Professor, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UCSF and co-founder of Soteria Biotherapeutics. Dr. Wells’ group pioneered the engineering of proteins, antibodies, and small molecules that target catalytic, allosteric, and protein-protein interaction sites; and technologies including protein phage display, alanine-scanning, engineered proteases for improved hydrolysis, bioconjugations, N-terminomics, disulfide “tethering” (a novel site-directed fragment based approach for drug discovery), and more recently an industrialized recombinant antibody production pipeline for the proteome. These lead to new insights into protease mechanisms, growth factor signaling, hot-spots in protein-protein interfaces, role of caspases in biology, and more recently determining how cell surfaces change in health and disease.
His team was integral to several protein products including Somavert for acromegaly, Avastin for cancer, Lifitegrast for dry eye disease, and engineered proteases sold by Pfizer, Genentech, Shire and Genencor, respectively. Dr. Wells is an elected member of the US National Academy of Science, American Association of Arts and Science, and the National Academy of Inventors.
Mike Briskin, PhD, brings more than 20 years of industry experience in multiple areas of drug discovery, including molecular biology, immunobiology, oncology and inflammation. Dr. Briskin is Chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Board at Obsidian Therapeutics. Prior to Obsidian, Dr. Briskin founded and ran discovery research at Jounce Therapeutics, a company developing biotherapeutics for immune-oncology indications. Prior to Jounce, he was Senior Director of Immunology at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, where he led the company’s efforts aimed at translational studies with a lead therapeutic compound in rheumatoid arthritis, as well as programs in inflammation and oncology. Prior to Merrimack, Dr. Briskin was a scientific consultant for Healthcare Ventures, one of the world’s largest venture capital firms. Previously, he was Director of Inflammation – cell migration at LeukoSite and subsequently Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where his early discovery work led to the development and subsequent approval of a novel T Cell homing inhibitor, Entyvio® (vedolizumab), for Ulcerative Colitis and Crohn’s disease. Dr. Briskin also led efforts in target identification and validation for the Millennium/Aventis collaboration and led discovery efforts in the company’s biotherapeutic and small molecule programs. Dr. Briskin holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and a B.A. in biology from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Brian Daniels, MD, joined 5AM Ventures as a Venture Partner in 2014 and transitioned to Partner in 2018. Dr. Daniels previously spent over two decades in clinical drug development, including leading the Development and Medical Affairs at Bristol-Myers Squibb for the last ten years. He directed the development of numerous innovative medicines that have contributed to the improvement for patients across a range of serious diseases. These include: ORENCIA and NULOJIX in immunology/transplant, REYATAZ, DAKLINZA and BARACLUDE in virology, ONGLYZA, FARXIGA and MYALEPT in metabolics, ELIQUIS in CV and YERVOY, OPDIVO, SPRYCEL and IXEMPRA in oncology. Dr. Daniels is currently a Director at these 5AM companies: Cabaletta Bio and Artiva. He is on the Scientific Advisory Boards for Soteria and Ideaya Biosciences (NASDAQ: IDYA). Dr. Daniels received B.S. and MS degrees from MIT and his MD from Washington University in St. Louis. He trained in internal medicine at New York Hospital and Rheumatology/Immunology at UCSF. Dr. Daniels is based in the San Francisco office.
Larry Fong, MD is the Efim Guzik Distinguished Professor in Cancer Biology and leads the Cancer Immunotherapy Program at the UCSF. He co-directs the Parker Institute of Cancer Immunotherapy at UCSF and co-leads the Cancer Immunity Program in the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is a physician-scientist in the Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology directing both a translational research program and a research lab. He has focused on cancer immunotherapy for over 20 years and has been involved in both pre-clinical and clinical studies of FDA-approved immunotherapies including sipuleucel-T and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Dr. Fong’s research focuses on understanding the mechanisms that underlie clinical response and resistance to immunotherapies.
Peter Kim, PhD is the Virginia & D.K. Ludwig Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford University School of Medicine and an Institute Scholar of Stanford ChEM-H. Dr. Kim is also the Lead Investigator of the Infectious Disease Initiative at the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. He was President of Merck Research Laboratories from 2003–2013 and oversaw development of more than 20 new medicines and vaccines, including JANUVIA, the first DPP-4 inhibitor for type 2 diabetes; GARDASIL, the first vaccine for the prevention of cervical cancer; ISENTRESS, the first HIV-1 integrase inhibitor; ZOSTAVAX, the first vaccine for the prevention of shingles; and KEYTRUDA, the first FDA-approved PD-1 immune checkpoint inhibitor for the treatment of cancer. Earlier, he was Professor of Biology at MIT, Member of the Whitehead Institute and an HHMI Investigator, where he discovered a salient component of how proteins cause viral membranes to fuse with cells, designed novel compounds to stop membrane fusion by HIV-1, and pioneered efforts to create an AIDS vaccine based on similar principles. His current service includes the Medical Advisory Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI); the Scientific Advisory Board of the NIH Vaccine Research Center; and the Biology Department Visiting Committee of the MIT Corporation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Engineering.
Henry Lowman, PhD, has more than 30 years of experience in the biotechnology industry with expertise in research and development of biotherapeutics. He earned a BA in chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University and a PhD in chemistry at Purdue University before being named an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Genentech, then moved on to roles as scientist and senior scientist, before leading Genentech’s antibody engineering department, with research and early-development team-leader roles in several therapeutic antibody programs, including VEGF, IgE, and CD20 antibodies. Dr. Lowman led R&D teams at CytomX Therapeutics as vice president of research and later chief scientific officer (2010-2014) in work on the Probody™ platform, and at Triphase Accelerator as executive director/VP (2015-2018). In 2013 he was named one of the top 25 most influential individuals in the antibody field by Total Biopharma. His career interests include structure-based drug design, structure-function analysis and molecular diversity techniques. Dr. Lowman is an author on more than 70 scientific publications, an inventor on more than 80 issued U.S. patents, and an editorial board member for the antibody journal mAbs. He is currently an advisor/board member for several organizations.
Arthur Weiss, MD, PhD is the Ephraim P. Engleman Distinguished Professor of Rheumatology in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he has been on the faculty since 1985. Dr. Weiss served as Division Chief of Rheumatology at UCSF from 1988-2011. He has been an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1985.
Dr. Weiss is a leader in the field of signal transduction in the immune system, focusing on the roles of tyrosine kinases and phosphatases in regulating lymphocyte activation. He is interested in how abnormalities in tyrosine phosphorylation pathways can lead to immunologically-mediated diseases. He has coauthored more than 250 peer-reviewed original research publications and more than 80 reviews. Dr. Weiss received the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Basic Immunology from the Cancer Research Institute, the Lee C. Howley Prize from the Arthritis Foundation, the Distinguished Investigator Award from the American College of Rheumatology, and the Meritorious Career Award from the American Association of Immunologists (AAI) and the Huang Foundation. He is also a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the AAI. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology and the European Molecular Biology Organization. He is a co-founder of Nurix Therapeutics and serves on several scientific advisory boards.