XinThera is a small molecule drug discovery company

Chris LeMasters is the Chief Executive Officer of XinThera, where he is responsible for the company’s strategic, financial and operational functions. Prior to XinThera, he was COO of Amplyx Pharmaceuticals, where he led the strategic efforts that resulted in the company’s successful sale to Pfizer in April 2021.

Mr. LeMasters was previously EVP & CBO of Mirati Therapeutics, where he was responsible for corporate development, strategy, and investor relations. During his three years in this role, he oversaw the successful expansion of the company and its market capitalization from $100 million in 2016 to nearly $5 billion in December 2019. He also served as the CEO of Promosome, a privately held mRNA re-engineering company co-founded by Nobel Laureate Dr. Gerald M. Edelman.

Over his 30+ year career, Mr. LeMasters has co-founded and served as a management team member for multiple biotechnology companies, including Cabrellis Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pharmion), Conforma Therapeutics (acquired by Biogen IDEC), Tragara Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Cothera), and Aarden Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, Mr. LeMasters worked in the corporate business development group at Eli Lilly & Company and as a management consultant with Coopers & Lybrand and Owens-Corning. He received a BS from Indiana University and an MBA with honors from the University of Chicago. Mr. LeMasters currently serves as a board member of the Hoosier Cancer Research Network, a clinical research organization, and January Therapeutics.

Bob Hoffman joined the XinThera team in 2021 and serves as its Vice President of Chemistry. Bob is a highly accomplished medicinal chemist with expertise in Structure-Based-Drug-Design, Cheminformatics and Property-Based-Drug-Design. Bob was a key contributor to the discovery of Lorbrena® the 12-membered macrocyclic kinase inhibitor approved for the treatment of patients with ALK-positive metastatic non-small cell lung cancer. Additionally, Bob was the project co-lead or inventor on seven additional clinical candidates including the CDK2/4/6 inhibitor ebvaciclib, the CDK2 selective inhibitor PF-07104091, and the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro inhibitor lufotrelvir. Bob is an author of over 40 patents and papers and the 1999 recipient of the ACS Technical Achievements in Organic Chemistry award and the 2021 ACS Heroes of Chemistry award. Bob received a B.S. in Chemistry from Andrews University in 1989.

Craig A. Murphy, Ph.D., is Vice President, Immunology at XinThera. A driven immunologist and leader with more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology/biopharmaceutical industry, Dr. Murphy has helped discover and characterise small molecule, biologics, and peptide therapeutics, several of which have advanced to the clinic. Prior to XinThera, Craig was leader of the GI, IL-23, and Innate Immunology Translational Science teams at Janssen R&D supporting programs and strategy across the Immunology portfolio. Craig’s career has been underlined by succession to positions of increasing responsibility at Schering-Plough Biopharma, Amgen, Inc., and Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. where he served as Head of Discovery Research. He also served as Senior Director of Immunology and Gastrointestinal (GI) Research at Ferring Pharmaceuticals and lead the GI Immunology Research team at Takeda. Craig received B.Sc. (Hons) and Ph.D. degrees in Immunology and Microbiology from the University of Adelaide, Australia and conducted his postdoctoral at DNAX Research, Inc. in Palo Alto, California.

Kyle Fraher, M.S., joined XinThera in March 2022 serving as its Vice President, Program Management. Kyle has more than 20 years of experience in drug development, from preclinical and clinical development through product approval. Her expertise is in R&D operations, project management, and program leadership. Prior to XinThera, Kyle was the Vice President, Project Management at Lengo Therapeutics, until its acquisition by Blueprint Medicines in December 2021. She previously worked in clinical operations, development and program management/leadership at Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Biogen, and Genentech. Kyle received a B.S. in Anthropology and Human Biology from Emory University in 1993 and a M.S. in Biostatistics and Epidemiology from Georgetown University in 1995.

Dr. Jing Liu joined XinThera in March 2022 as the Vice President of Technical Operations, leading all CMC and clinical supply chain activities. Jing brings extensive experiences in drug substance and drug product R&D, manufacturing, CMC regulatory filing, and supply chain. Prior to joining XinThera, Jing was the Executive Director of CMC at Turning Point Therapeutics from 2017 to 2022. As the founding member of the CMC department, Jing oversaw the development of lead asset, repotrectinib, from initial development to commercial launch preparation. He also played instrumental roles in the advancement of three additional clinical candidates. Previously Jing held positions of increasing responsibilities at Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Dart Neuroscience and helped to bring multiple compounds from discovery into development. Jing received his B.S. degree in chemistry at Peking University and Ph.D. in organic chemistry at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Donavon McConn, PhD, is a seasoned biotechnology professional currently serving as VP of Non-Clinical Development at XinThera, where he leads its immunology program. Prior to this role, Donavon was an entrepreneur-in-residence with Takeda Ventures and the former Chief Operating Officer of Solent Therapeutics. In his 20+ years of industry experience, Donavon has submitted >30 INDs and taken numerous assets into clinical development, including 3 marketed products. Donavon’s career, which includes roles at GSK, Theravance and Takeda, spans the full drug discovery paradigm from target identification and validation up to and including NDA and MAA submissions across multiple modalities and therapeutic areas. 

Donavon earned a B.S. in Physiology and Biochemistry at UC Davis, and received a PhD in Pharmaceutics at the University of Washington.

Matthew Pustelnik joined XinThera in early 2021 serving as its Vice President of Informatics & IT where he has headed the establishment of its IT infrastructure and Informatics platform.  Matthew has more than 25 years’ experience in the Biotech/Pharma industry. He started his career at Affymax Research Institute/GSK as a bench scientist and then transitioned out of the lab into Informatics as a software engineer. He then joined Syrrx in San Diego and led the establishment of an Informatics platform to support SBDD and compound progression. After the acquisition of Syrrx by Takeda, Matthew led his team in the technology transfer of the Informatics platform to Takeda headquarters. After 11 years at Syrrx/Takeda, he joined Global Blood Therapeutics as the head of Informatics and established the research Informatics platform that supported the discovery and development of Oxbryta and three additional clinical candidates. He supported the clinical development and commercialization of Oxbryta for the treatment of sickle cell disease Matthew received a B.A. in Microbiology/Genetics from University of California, Santa Barbara.