Our vision

Stefanie Flückiger-Mangual, Chief Executive Officer, is one of TOLREMO’s scientific founders and an expert in drug resistance in cancer therapy. She is a biomedical scientist and biochemist by training (University of Fribourg and ETH Zurich, Switzerland) and holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Translational Biomedicine from ETH Zurich. She led the team of scientists who discovered novel molecular mechanisms that can be exploited to prevent the development of non-genetic resistance to cancer therapies.

Alessandra Cesano, MD, PhD, is the consulting CMO at TOLREMO Therapeutics. She is a board-certified oncologist with extensive experience as a CMO at biotechnology companies, including ESSA Pharma, NanoString, Cleave Biosciences and Nodality, where she also acted as COO. Additionally, she held various management positions at Amgen, Biogen Idec, and SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals, where she helped advance various oncology drugs through late-stage development and FDA approvals. Early in her professional career, Dr. Cesano spent 12 years conducting research in tumor immunology, including nine years at the Wistar Institute, an NCI Basic Cancer Center connected with the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Cesano received an MD summa cum laude and a PhD in Tumor Immunology from the University of Turin. She is an author on over 140 publications.

Jessica Corson joined Tolremo in 2023 as our Chief Business Officer. Jessica has over 20 years of strategic and operational experience within the biotech industry. Most recently, she was Vice President of Corporate Strategy, Business Development and Alliance Management at Mirati Therapeutics, where she oversaw and executed the company’s strategy for external collaborations. Prior to joining Mirati in 2013, Jessica held roles of increasing responsibility in Business Development at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, from 2006 until the company’s sale to Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2012. Jessica serves on the board of directors at RS Oncology, a clinical-stage biotech company. She holds an M.B.A. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a B.S. in Biology from the University of California, San Diego.

Claudia Escher is Chief Operating Officer at TOLREMO. She joins from Biognosys, a Swiss company focusing on the development and application of mass spectrometry proteomics. As COO she was heading the contract research department and responsible for the commercial application of next generation proteomics for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Claudia graduated at the ETH Zürich in Environmental Sciences with a focus on biology. She holds a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Basel, Department of Neurobiology and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland for her work in biomarker discovery for muscular dystrophies using mass spectrometry.

Julie M Cherrington, PhD is an experienced life science executive with extensive insight in bringing drugs into the clinic and through to commercialization.

Dr. Cherrington is also a successful company builder – she has served as President and Chief Executive Officer for several biotechnology companies, including QUE Oncology, Arch Oncology, Revitope Oncology, Zenith Epigenetics, and Pathway Therapeutics. Earlier in her career, Dr. Cherrington was Vice President of Preclinical and Clinical Research at SUGEN, a Pharmacia/Pfizer company. Dr. Cherrington received her Ph.D. training in microbiology and immunology from the University of Minnesota and Stanford University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.

Currently, Dr. Cherrington serves on the Boards of Syncona Ltd, Mirati Therapeutics, Sar-dona Therapeutics, KisoJi Biotechnology, MycRx, and Actym Therapeutics (Chair). She is also a Venture Partner at Brandon Capital Partners.

Stefanie Flückiger-Mangual, Chief Executive Officer, is one of TOLREMO’s scientific founders and an expert in drug resistance in cancer therapy. She is a biomedical scientist and biochemist by training (University of Fribourg and ETH Zurich, Switzerland) and holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Translational Biomedicine from ETH Zurich. She led the team of scientists who discovered novel molecular mechanisms that can be exploited to prevent the development of non-genetic resistance to cancer therapies.

Jeff Jonker is an experienced biotech executive with a broad background as an operator, director, senior advisor, and counsel. Currently, he is the President & CEO and a Director of Belharra, having joined as its first employee in 2021. Before Belharra, Jonker was CEO of Ambys Medicines, President of NGM Pharmaceuticals, and Senior Vice President, Corporate and Business Development at Theravance Biopharma. His earlier career experience includes CBO at Satori Pharmaceuticals, Vice President of Business Development and Corporate Strategy at Gloucester Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Celgene), and leadership roles at Genentech in business development and legal. Jeff began his career at Wilson Sonsini, representing clients in the life science and high-tech sectors. He also serves on the Board of Directors of California Life Sciences. Jonker holds a J.D. from Columbia University School of Law, an M.LITT. from the University of St. Andrews, and a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College.

Mike Sherman has over 30 years of experience in the life science industry, holding key roles in multiple companies, including tenures as CEO and Board Director. Currently, he is Board Chair at Chimerix, Inc. and Board Director at Werewolf Therapeutics. He previously led Chimerix as CEO, transitioning its focus from antivirals to oncology, and was instrumental in the FDA approval and sale of TEMBEXA®. Prior to Chimerix, Mike was CEO at Endocyte, where he repositioned the company by re-prioritizing the pipeline, acquiring an external asset (PLUVICTO®), and aggressively executing a phase 3 regulatory and clinical strategy, guiding it to a $2.1 billion acquisition by Novartis in 2018. He joined Endocyte in 2006 as CFO, playing a crucial role in its IPO and financing. Earlier, he held executive roles and senior staff positions at Guidant Corporation. Mike earned a B.A. in Economics from DePauw University and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, graduating as a Tuck Scholar. He has also served on the boards of BioSpecifics Technologies, Inc. and Mead Johnson Nutrition and was Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

Mark Sumeray has 32 years of experience in health care, of which 23 years are in drug development within the pharmaceutical and biotech industries in both the US and EU. He is currently Chief Medical Officer at Amryt Pharmaceuticals, a Nasdaq-listed orphan disease biotech company, where he leads the clinical and scientific interactions with global health authorities, including the US Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency. Prior to Amryt, he spent five years as Chief Medical Officer at Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, a public orphan disease biotech company based in the US. Earlier in his career, he was at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he led a large US medical affairs team within the cardiovascular and metabolic area. He spent nine years in clinical practice in the NHS, specializing in cardiovascular surgery and physiology. He earned his medical degree at UCL (University of London), and also has a BSc in Physiology (UCL), a Master’s degree in Surgery, and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Michael Wacker is an experienced life science entrepreneur and General Partner at BioMedPartners. Michael Wacker serves on the board of directors of various portfolio companies. In addition, he coaches start-ups in Switzerland for Innosuisse, the governmental commission of technology and innovation. Before joining BioMedPartners, Michael Wacker was founder and CSO of GlycoVaxyn (acquired by GSK) and chairman of Inositec (acquired by Vifor). He studied biochemistry and obtained his PhD in microbiology from ETH Zurich.

Francesco Hofmann is VP, Head R&D Pierre Fabre Medical Care, since May 2021.

Prior to joining Pierre Fabre, Francesco spent 23 years in the Disease Area Oncology at Novartis. During this time, he had leadership roles of increasing responsibility, always focused on the discovery and development of novel cancer therapeutics. Since 2005, Francesco has been a member of the Oncology Leadership Team, that oversees drug discovery, translational research, data science and early clinical development at Novartis. Ultimately, from 2017, he was Global Head Oncology Drug Discovery with direct responsibility for the whole Oncology pre-clinical portfolio and for the Oncology Discovery organization in Basel, Switzerland, and in Cambridge, MA, USA. Teams under his leadership have discovered and progressed into clinical development more than a dozen novel cancer therapeutics.

From 1993 to 1997, Francesco was Research Fellow in Medicine at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, where he performed experimental research to understand the underlying molecular mechanism driving the uncontrolled proliferation of cancer cells.

Prior to joining Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Francesco was at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, Switzerland, where he earned a PhD in 1993 and a Master in 1989 in Biochemistry.

Professor Sanjay Popat is a Consultant Thoracic Medical Oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Professor of Thoracic Oncology at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, UK.

His research interests include the development of novel drug strategies for the treatment of thoracic cancers through clinical trials, the identification of DNA variants that influence thoracic cancer development and their impact on clinical behavior, as well as the identification of biomarkers predictive of therapeutic effect.

He is co-director for the NIHR London South Clinical Research Network (CRN) Cancer Division and Chair of Cancer for the West London Genomic Medicine Centre. He Chairs the British Thoracic Oncology Group (BTOG) and is the immediate past Chair of the UK NCRI Lung Cancer Clinical Studies Group (CSG) Advanced Disease Sub-group. He is active in the European Thoracic Oncology Platform (ETOP) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) Lung Group.

Professor Josep Tabernero holds MD and PhD degrees from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, and he is currently Head of the Medical Oncology Department at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, Director of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and Professor of Medicine at UVic-UCC. He has been Principal Investigator of several Phase I pharmacodynamic studies and translational projects with tumor-directed targeted therapies and immune-based therapies.

His research aims at potentiating molecular therapies targeting specific oncoproteins and accelerating more effective personalized cancer medicines for patients displaying genetic lesions or pathway dysregulation.

Dr. Tabernero serves on the Editorial Boards of various top-tier journals, including Annals of Oncology, ESMO Open, Cancer Discovery, Clinical Cancer Research, Cancer Treatment Reviews, and Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology. He has (co-)authored approximately 500 peer-reviewed papers with an H-Index of 95.

He was the President (2018 – 2019) of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). He is also a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He has also been a member of the Educational and Scientific Committees of ESMO, ASCO, AACR, AACR, AACR/NCI/EORTC, ASCO Gastrointestinal, TAT, and ESMO-GI/WCGIC meetings.

Dr. Timothy Yap is a Medical Oncologist and Physician-Scientist based at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is a Professor in the Department for Investigational Cancer Therapeutics (Phase I Program), and the Department ofThoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology. Dr. Yap is Vice President and Head of Clinical Development in the Therapeutics Discovery Division, a drug discovery biopharmaceutical division where drug discovery and clinical translation are seamlessly integrated. He is also the Associate Director of Translational Research in the Khalifa Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy, which is an integrated research and clinical trials program aimed at implementing personalized cancer therapy and improving patient outcomes. Dr. Yap’s main research focuses on the first-in-human and combinatorial development of molecularly targeted agents and immunotherapies, and their acceleration through clinical studies using novel predictive and pharmacodynamic biomarkers.

Wilhelm Krek was one of TOLREMO’s co-founders and was Full Professor of Cell Biology at ETH Zurich since 2003. He was a world leader in cancer cell signaling and had worked at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research (FMI), Basel, and at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute/Harvard Medical School in Boston. He co-founded the ETH Spin-off ProteoMedix AG, the Institute of Molecular Health Sciences, and the NEXUS Personalized Health Technologies Platform at ETH Zurich. He received several honors for his work on cell signaling and disease mechanisms, including the Robert Wenner Prize, the Friedrich Miescher Medal, the International Steiner Cancer Research Award, and the Swiss Bridge Award. He was an elected member of EMBO and the American Association for Cancer Research.

Willy was instrumental in laying the scientific foundation for the novel scientific principles that TOLREMO is based on. Despite his untimely passing, his contagious enthusiasm, his passion for science, and his visionary thinking will remain at the heart of the company.