Jeremy Graff Ph D

As the CSO and Senior Vice President for Research within the Biothera Pharmaceutical group, I am responsible for: 1) guiding corporate business strategy; 2) leading the research enterprise in advancing the science of Biothera's cancer immunotherapeutic, Imprime PGG; 3) and, steering the clinical development of Imprime PGG to the patients most likely to benefit. I am also deeply involved in designing and orchestrating an innovative performance management system for Biothera Pharmaceuticals. Imprime PGG activates key innate immune effector cells to: 1) recognize and kill tumor cells decorated with tumor-targeting monoclonal antibodies; 2) Re-orient the immune microenvironment to promote tumor recognition and eradication; and 3) activate and mature dendritic cells enabling enhanced antigen presentation and expansion of tumor-targeting T cells. Imprime PGG has shown promising clinical activity in a series of clinical trials on more than 500 subjects. Imprime PGG is currently in phase 2 combination studies with Keytruda for metastatic Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, metastatic melanoma and NSCLC. Biothera is currently a privately held U.S. Biotechnology company.

Built and led the Translational Oncology Group of ~25 PhD and Master's level scientists within the Lilly Oncology franchise (starting in 2009). In this capacity, my group was responsible for working closely with Lilly's clinical development groups to infuse science into clinical development plans, enhancing the probability of success for these programs. My team was tasked with providing these critical scientific insights for programs that included olaratumumab (anti-PDGFR), abemaciclib (CDK4/6 inhibitor), meristinib (Met/axl inhibitor), enzastaurin (AKT pathway inhibitor), galunisertib (TGF Beta Receptor I inhibitor). Led a grass roots effort within Oncology to update and amend the Lilly Performance management system. Our efforts, along with similar efforts from other colleagues throughout Lilly Research Labs, resulted in the implementation of a new Performance Management system- one better aligned with modern research on motivation.

Built and led the Translational Oncology Group of ~25 PhD and Master's level scientists within the Lilly Oncology franchise. In this capacity, my group was responsible for working closely with Lilly's clinical development groups to infuse science into clinical development plans, enhancing the probability of success for these programs. My team was tasked with providing these critical scientific insights for programs that included olaratumumab (anti-PDGFR), abemaciclib (CDK4/6 inhibitor), meristinib (Met/axl inhibitor), enzastaurin (AKT pathway inhibitor), galunisertib (TGF Beta Receptor I inhibitor). Led a grass roots effort within Oncology to update and amend the Lilly Performance management system. Our efforts, along with similar efforts from other colleagues throughout Lilly Research Labs, resulted in the implementation of a new Performance Management system- one better aligned with modern research on motivation.

Won senior management endorsement to recruit senior Lilly scientists to form a "first- of- its- kind" group focused on continuing to advance the science of Lilly Oncology Portfolio assets. This group- Oncology Patient Tailoring- was comprised of 20+ PhD and Master's level scientists. Our responsibilities included providing deep mechanistic insight into the primary therapeutic mechanism of action for Lilly Oncology assets and infusing this information into clinical development plans. This necessitated close collaboration with Lilly translational therapeutics and oncology business unit colleagues to frame-up the right clinical opportunities for each asset in the oncology portfolio- to match the right patient population to the right therapeutic option.

Started as a senior scientist in the Prostate Cancer Group. I was tasked with finding new molecular targets that might be intimately involved in driving the progression of prostate cancer to androgen independence (what we now call castrate-independence). My lab was involved in target identification, validation, screen development, SAR activities, lead generation and the development of multiple new clinical candidates targeting the AKT-mTOR-eIF4E signaling pathway. Amongst other new clinical candidates, we were the first to advance an eIF4E-specific drug into clinical trials.