Leadership

Dennis Kim, MD, MBA - President and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Dennis Kim is a scientist and a physician executive who brings ~25 years of clinical research and biopharmaceutical industry experience to Xeno Biosciences. Dr. Kim served in a variety of senior executive positions in the industry, most recently as Chief Medical Officer at CymaBay, Emerald Biosciences, and Zafgen, Inc., as well as at Orexigen Therapeutics as the Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs. He also held various senior management positions at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for over 7 years, including Executive Director of Corporate Strategy and Program Medical Lead for the development and commercialization of Byetta® (exenatide) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Kim completed his fellowship in Endocrinology/Metabolism at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) during which time he investigated the pathophysiology of diabetes and metabolic syndrome. He is extensively published in top peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals with over 50 publications to his name. Dr. Kim also received an MBA degree with honors from UCSD Rady School of Management with an emphasis on biotech structure and strategy.

Scientific Advisory Board

Arya Sharma, MD/PhD, DSc. (h.c.), FRCPC

Chairman and Chief Medical Officer of Xeno Biosciences

Dr. Arya M. Sharma is Professor of Medicine & Chair in Obesity Research and Management at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. He is also the Clinical Co-Chair of the Alberta Health Services Obesity Program. Dr. Sharma is founder and Scientific Director of the Canadian Obesity Network, a network of over 10,000 obesity researchers, health professionals and other stakeholders. He is also the Past-President of the Canadian Association of Bariatric Physicians and Surgeons. His past appointments include positions as Professor of Medicine and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) at McMaster University (2002-2007), Professor of Medicine at the Franz-Volhard Klinik – Charité, Humboldt University Berlin (2000-2002) and the Free University of Berlin (1994-2000). His research focuses on the evidence-based prevention and management of obesity and its complications. He has authored and co-authored more than 350 scientific articles and has lectured widely on the etiology and management of obesity and related cardiovascular disorders. Dr. Sharma is regularly featured as a medical expert in national and international TV and print media and maintains a widely read obesity blog at www.drsharma.ca.

Caroline Apovian, MD, FACP, FACN

Dr. Caroline Apovian is Professor of Medicine and Pediatrics, in the Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes, and Nutrition at Boston University School of Medicine, USA. She is also Director of the Center for Nutrition and Weight Management at Boston Medical Center, USA. Dr. Apovian is a nationally and internationally recognized authority on nutrition and has been in the field of obesity and nutrition since 1990. Her current research interests are in weight loss and its effects on endothelial cell function, adipose cell metabolism and inflammation, research in the bariatric surgery population, and novel pharmacotherapeutic anti-obesity agents. She is also an expert in the technique for subcutaneous adipose tissue biopsies, and has been performing these biopsies on research subjects for over 10 years. She was on the expert panel for updating the 2013 AHA/ACC/TOS Clinical Guidelines for the Management of Overweight and Obesity in Adults. Dr. Apovian has been a member of The Obesity Society since 1992, and has served on the Clinical Committee as well as Secretary/Treasurer and the Executive Committee from 2005 to 2008. She has been a faculty speaker and has presented papers at several of the Society's Annual Scientific Meeting and until recently she served as Associate Editor for the Society's journal, Obesity. She currently serves as the president of The Obesity Society.

Carel le Roux, MBChB, MSc, FRCP, FRCPath, PhD

Dr. Carel le Roux graduated from medical school in Pretoria South Africa, completed his Senior House Officer training at Barts and The London Hospital, his SpR training in metabolic medicine at the Hammersmith Hospitals and his PhD at Imperial College London. He was appointed as Senior Lecturer in 2006, promoted to Reader in 2009 at Imperial and accepted a Chair as Head of Pathology at University College Dublin in 2011. He received the President of Ireland Young Researcher Award from science Foundation Ireland, a Clinician Scientist Award from the National Institute Health Research in the UK and a Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Fellowship amongst others. After establishing a successful independent research group he published numerous high impact papers over the years that have influenced his field. Working within the Diabetes Complications Research Centre and the Section of Surgery and Surgical Specialities the focus of his research is primarily concerned with increased mortality and morbidity associated with obesity/diabetes, and understanding the mechanisms by which bariatric surgery affects energy balance. In particular, his translational research on the understanding of the physiological role and pathological changes in appetite control has been widely acknowledged. He has also been able to take up a variety of editorial positions of peer reviewed journals.

Donna Ryan, MD

Dr. Donna Ryan is a world-renowned obesity researcher and Professor Emerita at the Louisiana State University's Pennington Biomedical Research Center, where she serves as interim executive director. Dr. Ryan served as an associate professor, professor and associate executive director for clinical research at Pennington Biomedical. She is the president-elect of the World Obesity Federation and associate editor-in-chief of the scientific journals Obesity Research and Obesity. Dr. Ryan is a recognized consultant and advisor on the topic of obesity and chronic disease and was instrumental in a number of landmark nutrition, diabetes, weight loss, and military health research studies. She has been an author on more than 225 original publications, 11 books and nearly 50 scholarly chapters and reviews. Her research includes participation on the teams that developed and executed the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), POUNDS Lost, DPP (Diabetes Prevention Program) and Look AHEAD Studies. Dr. Ryan's continuing research interests focus on translation of effective weight management into primary care practices. Dr. Ryan also served as co-Chair of the Expert Panel that produced the AHA/ACC/TOS 2013 Guidelines for the Diagnosis and Management of Obesity and was a panel member of the 2015 Endocrine Society Systematic Evidence Review and Guidelines for Medications that Affect Body Weight.

Lee Kaplan, MD/PhD,

Lee M. Kaplan, MD, PhD, is the Director of the Obesity, Metabolism & Nutrition Institute and founding director of the Weight Center at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is the Director of the subspecialty fellowship program in Obesity Medicine and Nutrition at MGH, Director of the NIH-sponsored Small Animal Metabolic Surgery Core Resource, Associate Director of the NIH-sponsored Boston-area Nutrition and Obesity Research Center, and Immediate Past Chair of the Campaign to End Obesity as well as the immediate Past Chair of the Obesity Society. Dr. Kaplan graduated with honors from Harvard University. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. in molecular biology, both with distinction, from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and a fellowship in gastroenterology at the MGH and Harvard Medical School and a fellowship in genetics at the Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Kaplan's clinical expertise is in the areas of obesity medicine, gastroenterology and liver disease. The author of more than 150 medical and scientific papers, he has a special interest in the causes and complications of obesity and the development of new and more effective preventive strategies and therapies for this problem. His clinical research is focused on identifying clinically relevant subtypes of obesity, identifying predictors of outcome of obesity therapies, and exploring novel, combination therapies for obesity and its complications. His basic research is focused on the physiological and molecular mechanisms of gastrointestinal regulation of body weight and metabolic function, and his group has pioneered the development and use of rodent models of weight loss surgery and gastrointestinal devices to explore these mechanisms.

Board of Directors

TOM HUGHES, PHD - BOARD MEMBER

Dr. Tom Hughes is Chairman and CEO of Navitor Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge MA-based biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of therapeutics impacting the activity of mTORC1. Tom has more than 30 years of industry experience in the development and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Prior to joining Navitor, Dr. Hughes served as President and Chief Scientific Officer of Zafgen and previously led Zafgen as CEO from 2008 to 2017. During this time, Dr. Hughes established Zafgen as a leading biotechnology company working in the area of rare and prevalent obesity-associated metabolic disorders and led the company through its Initial Public Offering in 2014. Prior to Zafgen, Dr. Hughes held several positions at Novartis including Global Head of the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases Therapeutic Area at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research in Cambridge, MA. In these roles, he oversaw many drug discovery and development projects targeting major global aging-related health issues including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Dr. Hughes also is Chairman of Totus Medicines, Inc, and serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Deep Genomics, Inc. in addition to being a member of several scientific and strategic advisory boards, including Broadview Ventures.

Dr. Hughes holds a PhD in nutritional biochemistry from Tufts University, an MS in zoology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, and a BA in biology from Franklin and Marshall College.


Jeffrey Arnold - Advisor and Board Member

Mr. Arnold is the president of Arnold Strategies, LLC, a strategic advisor to early stage CEO’s, an angel investor with Boston Harbor Angels, Mass Medical Angels and Sky Ventures, a director of Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals and a director of Xeno Biosciences. Previously he was Chairman of Corbus Pharmaceuticals, a public company with novel antifibrotic and anti-inflammatory drugs, Chairman of First Light Diagnostics, a company with a platform for the diagnosis of hospital acquired infections, CEO of Cambridge Heart, a cardiology diagnostics company which he founded and took public, Chairman and CEO of CardioFocus, a cardiac catheter ablation company, and CEO of Accelrys, with software tools for rational drug design, now a division of Dassault Systemes. As an angel investor, Mr. Arnold, has invested in, among others, Smart Cells (sold to Merck), Syntonix (sold to Biogen Idec), Health Honors (sold to Healthways), BioAssets (sold to Cephalon), Intelligent BioSystems (sold to Qiagen), Spryance (sold to Heartland), JB Therapeutics (now public as Corbus Pharma), Myomo (now public) and Siamab (sold to "confidential"). Mr. Arnold is an active mentor to life science start-up CEO’s through a variety of programs, a guest lecturer at the MIT Sloan School, on the Grant Review Board of the MIT Deshpande Center and on the Board of Advisors at the Museum of Science. He received a BSEE from MIT in 1972.

DENNIS KIM, MD, MBA - PRESIDENT AND cEO, Board member

Dennis D. Kim, MD, MBA, is a physician executive and brings ~25 years of clinical research and biopharmaceutical industry experience to Xeno Biosciences. Dr. Kim served in a variety of senior executive positions in the industry, most recently as Chief Medical Officer at CymaBay, Emerald Biosciences, and Zafgen, Inc., as well as at Orexigen Therapeutics as the Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs. He also held various senior management positions at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for over 7 years, including Executive Director of Corporate Strategy and Program Medical Lead for the development and commercialization of Byetta® (exenatide) for the treatment of type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Kim completed his fellowship in Endocrinology/Metabolism at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) during which time he investigated the pathophysiology of diabetes and metabolic syndrome. He is extensively published in top peer-reviewed medical and scientific journals with over 50 publications to his name. Dr. Kim also received an MBA degree with honors from UCSD Rady School of Management with an emphasis on biotech structure and strategy.


STAN ROSE, PHD - BOARD MEMBER

Dr. Rose is a Ph.D. biologist, life sciences executive, and serial entrepreneur. He has spent over three decades working with leading scientists and clinicians to create substantial commercial value from inventions related to genome analysis. He has raised more than $100 million in startup funding and led businesses to create more than $1 billion in market value for shareholders. He currently serves on the Board of Invenra, a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of multi-specific antibodies for immuno-oncology and autoimmune disorders. He also serves on the Board of Xeno Biosciences, a drug development company dedicated to finding safe and effective treatments for obesity and metabolic diseases. Dr. Rose is a Board Advisor to SerumDPT, who have created the first device enabling real-time isolation of plasma or serum from drawn blood. He also serves as a Senior Fellow with the Council on Strategic Risks, participating in The Alliance to End Biological Threats. Dr. Rose was a Director of Cellular Dynamics International (NASDAQ: ICEL), a leader in pluripotent stem cell technology for drug discovery and cell therapy (acquired by FujiFilm in 2015), and Chair of the Market Advisory Board for Cyvek, a protein immunoassay and immuno-diagnostics company (acquired by BioTechne in 2014). Highlights from earlier in his career include serving as CEO of NimbleGen Systems, a genomics tools company, from 2003 through its acquisition by Roche in 2007; co-founding and growing Genetic MicroSystems, a microarray instrumentation company that was acquired by Affymetrix in 2000; and directing the PCR business for Perkin-Elmer and Applied Biosystems during its most dynamic growth phase in the 1990s. Dr. Rose received his B.A. from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.


Michael Koeris, PhD - Board Member

Dr. Michael Koeris is currently Founder and CEO at Vulcan Biologics, and an Adjunct Professor at Keck Graduate Institute. Michael is also currently Portfolio Executive of the NIH RADx COVID-19 Response Program at The National Institutes of Health. In addition to being a board member at Xeno, Michael also serves as a board director at Addgene. Michael is a member of scientific Advisory Board of BiomX, a phage related microbiome therapeutics company. He was founder of Corvium, a food diagnostics software company, and co-founder and CEO of Sample6, a leading food-safety diagnostics provider, using engineered bacteriophages to deliver the world’s first on-site, in-shift bacterial pathogen detection system. Prior to Sample6, Michael worked at KPMG Consulting and McKinsey & Company in Germany, as well as Flagship Ventures in Cambridge. Michael holds a PhD from Boston University in Biomedical Engineering.