About

Fredrik Wiklund joined Bright Peak in January 2020 and serves as our Chief Executive Officer, bringing over two decades of leadership and operational expertise across both emerging and established biotechnology companies. Prior to Bright Peak, Fred served as Chief Operating Officer at Bioniz Therapeutics Inc., a company developing multi-functional cytokine-based therapies for the treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases, where he secured a ~$500 million Option and Merger agreement with Almirall S.A. Before his time at Bioniz, Fred was the Vice President of Corporate Development and later the President and CEO of Celladon Corporation (CLDN), leading the company through a successful IPO in 2014 and its merger with Eiger Pharmaceuticals in 2016. Earlier in his career, Fred was Head of Corporate Development and Investor Relations at Tercica Inc. (TRCA), overseeing the company’s IPO and its ~$650 million acquisition by Ipsen Group in 2009. He also gained valuable experience as an investment banker in the Healthcare Group at Lehman Brothers, London, and spent five years at Gilead Sciences, contributing to the launch of Gilead’s first commercial product in 1996. Fred holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of San Diego and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Southern California.

Jon Wigginton serves as our President of Research and Development. He has over 25 years of experience in clinical oncology and most recently served as Senior Advisor and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board at Cullinan Oncology, Inc., having previously served as the company’s Chief Medical Officer. Prior, Jon was Chief Medical Officer at MacroGenics, where he led the company’s evolution of a fully-integrated clinical-stage cancer immunotherapy organization. Dr. Wigginton also held leadership positions at Bristol Myers Squibb as Therapeutic Area Head and Executive Director, Immuno-Oncology Early Clinical Research and as Group Medical Director of Discovery Medicine-Clinical Oncology. There, he led early clinical development of the BMS Immuno-Oncology portfolio, including checkpoint inhibitors such as anti-PD-1 (Nivolumab)/Opdivo®) and anti-PD-L1 (BMS-936559), checkpoint inhibitor-based combinations including anti-CTLA-4 (Yervoy®)/anti-PD-1 (Opdivo®) among others, and a spectrum of other I-O agents. He also co-founded and co-led the BMS International Immuno-Oncology Network (IION). Dr. Wigginton also previously served as President of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC). Earlier in his career, Dr. Wigginton worked at the National Cancer Institute for 15 years, and served as Head of the Investigational Biologics Section in the Center for Cancer Research (NCI intramural program). There, he demonstrated the initial therapeutic synergy and key mechanisms of action by several novel cytokine-based regimens including IL-2 in combination with IL-18, as well as IL-12 and IL-27 among others. Dr. Wigginton is currently a member of the Board of Directors of Sutro Biopharma. He earned his M.D. and B.S in biology from the University of Michigan.

Bertolt Kreft has served as our Chief Scientific Officer since February 2020.  Bertolt is an expert in cancer drug discovery with 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience and a broad background in oncology research covering target validation, biologics and small molecule lead discovery, as well as research supporting pre-IND, early and late-stage clinical development programs.  Prior to joining Bright Peak, Bertolt served as VP Immuno-Oncology at Bayer AG.  From 2009 to 2020, he was responsible for cancer drug discovery efforts at Bayer focused on Immuno-Oncology, antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), and biologics.  Bertolt entered pharmaceutical industry with Schering AG in 1999 where he held positions of increasing responsibility including group leader in target identification & validation.  Bertolt received a PhD in biochemistry from the Free University Berlin/Charité (Germany), followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.  He holds a diploma in biochemistry from the Free University Berlin.

Vijaya R. Pattabiraman is a co-founder of Bright peak and serves as Chief Technology Officer. Vijay has made seminal contributions to Bright Peak’s technology and brings in extensive expertise and know-how on the EDC platform. He has more than 15 years of experience in biomolecules, small molecules discovery and development for academic and translational research. Vijay has co-authored several peer-reviewed publications and book chapters in the field of chemical protein synthesis, peptide antibiotics and small-molecules for inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases. He is also a co-inventor on multiple patents and serves as a co-founder of another ETH spin-off company that focuses on automation in chemistry. Vijay has fostered many academic and biotech collaborations and led multi-disciplinary global teams. Since 2012, he worked as a Senior Scientist with Prof. Bode at ETH Zürich and continues with this affiliation. He gained first insights in to the world of drug discovery and development in early 2000’s as a medicinal chemist at Dr. Reddy’s laboratories, a multinational pharmaceutical company. Vijay received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Alberta, Canada and performed his postdoctoral studies at University of Pennsylvania, USA and at ETH Zürich, Switzerland.

Suba Krishnan brings more than 20 years of experience in clinical pediatric hematology/oncology and oncology drug development to her role at Bright Peak. She was most recently VP of Early Clinical Development at Eikon Therapeutics, where she led strategy and clinical development of a novel selective PARP1 inhibitor and other small molecule programs in the early oncology pipeline. Prior to that, she served as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development at Mereo Biopharma, where she oversaw their rare disease (alpha1 antitrypsin deficiency-associated lung disease) and anti-TIGIT antibody efforts for oncology. At Genmab she served as VP and Global Program Head, Immuno-oncology, where she led clinical strategy and development of multiple pre-clinical and clinical stage programs including the novel IO duobody GEN1042. Prior to Genmab, she held roles of increasing responsibility including at Merck where she led the evaluation of a HRRm/HRD-based selection biomarker panel for Lynparza; at Medimmune/AZ where she led the early clinical development of multiple ADCs and IO programs including, among others; and at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she initially served as the clinical lead for the early phases of development of T-cell agonist antibodies including GITR and CD137 (urelumab) and ran the Phase-1 RDE combination cohort of ipilimumab and nivolumab in advanced melanoma; and subsequently, served as the clinical lead for the filing of nivolumab in 2L urothelial carcinoma, and led the initial study design and early execution of late phase checkpoint inhibitor combo studies in GU malignancies. Suba received her MBBS from Armed Forces Medical College, Pune University, India. She completed her pediatric residency at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, MI and her pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, Columbia University, New York which included extensive research experience in the laboratory of Katherine Hajjar in the Cell and Developmental Biology Program at Cornell University. Prior to her career in Pharma, Suba held faculty positions at the Departments of Pediatric Hematology at Columbia University, New York, and Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

David Cardino has served as our Vice President of Finance since January 2020.  David is a financial and operational leader with over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries.  Most recently, David served as Vice President of Finance at GT Biopharma, a publicly traded, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel immuno-oncology products.  Previously, David led the finance and accounting operations of Agensys, Inc., a U.S. based oncology research center of Astellas Pharma, Inc. where he managed annual expenditures in excess of $100M and led the implementation of an ERP system along with Sarbanes-Oxley controls.  Prior to joining Agensys, David held positions of increasing responsibility at MannKind Corporation, supporting R&D and commercial operations while serving on the finance and pharmaceutical development leadership teams.  Before MannKind, David held various positions at Merck & Co., Inc in areas including pharmaceutical economics and R&D portfolio evaluation.  David began his career as an auditor with Price Waterhouse LLP.  He is a certified public accountant (inactive) in the state of New Jersey and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics-Accounting from the College of the Holy Cross, and a Master of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Sharon Gao has served as our Vice President of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls since November 2021. She brings over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries supporting R&D, accelerated CMC development with phase-appropriate strategies, and regulatory filings.  Prior to Bright Peak, Sharon worked at Synthrox, later known as Sanofi San Diego upon the company’s acquisition. At Synthrox/Sanofi, Sharon oversaw CMC analytical and formulation development, drug product manufacturing, GMP test release and stability for the Company’s IL-2 immuno-oncology program. She played a crucial role in correspondences to Health Authorities and actively participated in Type C meetings with FDA. Previously, Sharon was a senior director at La Jolla Pharmaceuticals where she oversaw the analytical development of a peptide drug candidate in Phase 1-2 and supervised QC release and stability for the phase 1 drug product. Sharon also participated in pre-approval inspection for the commercial launch of Giapreza. Before joining La Jolla Pharmaceutical, Sharon was the head of Analytical Chemistry and Quality Control at Quidel (formerly known as Alere Inc.), where she established the GMP testing and quality control facilities and supervised validations to support quality investigations and manufacturing. From 2005-2012, Sharon and her teams assessed the developability of monoclonal antibodies, multi-specific antibodies and pegylated proteins. Sharon received her PhD in Analytical Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego and completed post-doctoral training at Washington University in St Louis.

Matt Robbins has served as our General Counsel since July 2021.  From 2012 to July 2021, Matt was an associate at the law firm of Cooley LLP, where he served as outside counsel to companies in the biotech and technology industries, advising on corporate and securities matters.   Prior, Matt was a senior associate in the Enterprise Risk Services group of Deloitte & Touche LLP, advising clients on internal audit and Sarbanes-Oxley issues.   Matt received a JD from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles.  He is a member of the State Bar of California

Robert Tam has served as Vice President, Program Management since June 2020. Robert has over 27 years of pharmaceutical drug development experience covering drug discovery through to NDA submission. During this period, he has accrued 20 years of portfolio, alliance and program management expertise, of which the last 12 years has been in oncology drug development. Prior to joining Bright Peak, Robert served as Executive Director, Program and Alliance Management at Mirati Therapeutic where he led the development of small molecule inhibitors of tumor-specific mutations (including KRAS G12C program) from preclinical candidate to phase 2 while managing 4 global alliance partnerships. Before that, he was Senior Director, Program Management at Agensys In., a subsidiary of Astellas Pharma Inc. From 2009 – 2017, he and his team were responsible for managing the development of the portfolio of antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) for various oncology indications at Agensys, from discovery through to clinical proof-of-concept. Robert received his PhD working on erythropoietin research at Kings College, University of London, UK followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in immunology at University of California, San Francisco.