Prakash Raman, Ph.D. has over two decades of biopharmaceutical business development and executive leadership experience, blending his scientific background, program and portfolio management and strong business development experience to lead and support biopharma companies. Prakash joined as CEO of InduPro in April 2024 after serving as President and CEO of Ribon Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on first-in-class small molecule drugs for Oncology and Immunology targeting the PARP family of enzymes, from Feb 2022 to March 2024.

Prior to joining Ribon, Prakash served as Senior Partner, Chief Business Development Officer at Flagship Pioneering from October 2019 to February 2022, where he leveraged the platforms and assets in Flagship’s network to generate opportunities for significant value creation. Dr. Raman joined Flagship after spending nearly fourteen years at Novartis, most recently as Vice President, Global Head of Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) Business Development and Licensing. During his time at Novartis, Dr. Raman was instrumental in forging key collaborations in immuno-oncology, executing many out-licensing opportunities and guiding the acquisitions of Advanced Accelerator Applications, Endocyte, IFM Tre and Selexys. In addition, he has led cross-functional drug discovery and early development project teams that successfully progressed compounds to clinical testing in patients. Prior to Novartis, Dr. Raman spent six years as a Senior Scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and two years as a post-doctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute.

Prakash completed his undergraduate work at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and received his Ph.D. in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Scott Lesley is InduPro’s President & Chief Scientific Officer leading all platform and drug discovery functions at the Company.

Prior to joining InduPro, Scott was Vice President of Discovery Biologics at Merck and was responsible for a broad preclinical pipeline of molecules across all therapeutic areas within Merck. This included diverse modalities such as multifunctional antibodies and engineered proteins, ADCs, oncolytic viruses and cell therapies.

Prior to his role at Merck, Scott was at Novartis. He joined the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) at its inception. There, he established research and technology platforms in biotherapeutics, protein engineering, protein structure and function, and high-throughput technologies. In his role as the Executive Director of Biotherapeutics and Biotechnology he oversaw scientists and engineers responsible for biotherapeutics discovery and optimization, structural biology, HTS, functional genomics, automation and engineering.

Scott also maintained a faculty appointment at The Scripps Research Institute from 2005-2016 and led an independent research lab as Co-PI of the Joint Center for Structural Genomics (JCSG) studying protein structure and function with an emphasis on host/microbe interactions. The JCSG was responsible for over 1600 novel protein structures.

Prior to joining GNF, he was a Sr. Research Scientist at Promega Corporation and has had postdoctoral positions at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Scott received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin and a B.S. in Microbiology from the University of Illinois. He has over 200 publications to date and has contributed to novel therapeutic targets, therapeutic modalities, small molecule and biotherapeutic clinical candidates and registered drugs, as well as developing platform technologies in HTS and other automation for drug discovery.

Pam Holland is InduPro’s Sr. Vice President of Biology, and will oversee pipeline development and contribute to the execution of InduPro’s strategic objectives.

Prior to joining InduPro, Pam was Sr. Vice President of Research at Alpine Immune Sciences, where she was responsible for overseeing the development and advancement of internal research programs and managing external pre-clinical collaborations. These included protein-based candidate therapeutics derived from an internal directed-evolution platform utilizing novel protein engineering strategies, aimed at both oncology and autoimmune/inflammation therapeutic areas.

Prior to joining Alpine, Pam served as Vice President, Cancer Biology at Surface Oncology in Cambridge MA, overseeing biology and immunology research. During her tenure she played key roles in developing the Surface pipeline, driving multiple pre-clinical programs into Phase 1, as well as the establishment of an early strategic partnership with Novartis and later with GSK. Prior to joining Surface, Pam held roles of increasing responsibility in oncology research at Amgen, working extensively on TNF-receptor superfamily members including death-receptor agonists. Members of her team were instrumental in the development of multiple discovery programs for cancer immunotherapy.

Pam received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, San Diego and her PhD from the University of Washington/Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the lab of Dr. Jonathan Cooper. She also held a post-doctoral position at Immunex prior to the Amgen acquisition. Before graduate school, Pam worked at Cetus Corporation in Emeryville, CA where she was a key contributor to the development of TaqMan™. She is a co-inventor on all TaqMan patents and was the lead author on the first publication describing TaqMan in 1991.

Niyi Fadeyi is InduPro’s Vice President of Chemical Sciences leading discovery chemistry and chemical biology efforts for early target discovery and platform chemistry technologies.

Prior to InduPro, Niyi was a founding member of the Merck Exploratory Science Center and served as the Head of Molecular Discovery group and co-lead of the cellular chemistry team. In this capacity, he led a group working at the interface of chemistry and biology towards creating robust and innovative drug pipelines, delivering novel therapeutic targets across multiple therapeutic areas and developing drug discovery platform technologies. He co-invented light powered protein microenvironment mapping technology for profiling protein-neighborhoods in a high-resolution manner.

Before Merck, Niyi was at Pfizer as a Principal Scientist within the Inflammation & Immunology/Rare Diseases division (medicinal chemistry and chemical biology). In that capacity, he contributed to medicinal chemistry/chemical biology programs and led chemistry efforts across a broad range of target classes, some of which have advanced into the clinical phase.

Niyi was a UNCF/Merck postdoctoral fellow at Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University in the lab of Prof. Matthew Shair. In 2011, he obtained his doctoral degree at Vanderbilt University, under the mentorship of Prof. Craig Lindsley. Niyi holds a B.S. in chemistry from Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria and a M.Sc. from the Tennessee State University. Niyi serves on the advisory board of ACS Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and is an Early Career Board member of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters.

He is a co-founder of the STEM Hub for Industry Networking and Exchange (S.H.I.N.E.) program, a non-profit mentoring program for underrepresented STEM students.

Rob Oslund is InduPro’s Vice President of Platform Technology leading chemical biology and proximity labeling platform technology functions at the Company.

Prior to joining InduPro, Rob was a founding member of the Merck Exploratory Science Center co-leading a cellular chemistry team focused on developing novel platform technologies to enable therapeutic development. He co-invented photocatalytic-based proximity labeling and led efforts to profile surface protein environments and explore cell-cell interaction biology. Also while at Merck, Rob developed novel covalent labeling technologies for target identification and was involved in multiple modality agnostic drug discovery programs. Rob is a co-founder of the STEM Hub for Industry Networking and Exchange (S.H.I.N.E.) program for underrepresented STEM students with over 400 mentee/mentor pairs participating across 25 biotech/pharma companies.

Prior to Merck, Rob was a peptide chemist and biochemist at Neon Therapeutics (now BioNTech) developing high throughput peptide synthesis platforms and proteomic workflows to investigate HLA peptide ligandomes for cancer vaccine development.

Rob did his postdoc in the lab of Tom Muir at Princeton University where he developed a pan-specific antibody to phosphorylated histidine and applied this to biological systems to investigate the role of bisphosphoglycerate mutase in serine pathway flux. Rob earned his PhD from the University of Washington in Seattle with Professor Mike Gelb where he studied phospholipase enzymes through design and synthesis of selective phospholipase small molecule inhibitors. Rob received his B.S. in Chemistry from Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah. He is originally from Henderson, NV.

Ertan Eryilmaz is the Vice President of Biologics at InduPro, where he manages the Molecular Discovery Engineering and Protein Sciences teams. He plays a key role in strategic planning and provides scientific leadership throughout the organization. Ertan is known for his expertise in therapeutic biologics research and development, particularly in antibody discovery, protein engineering, and progressing biologics from target identification to IND-enabling studies.

Before joining InduPro, Ertan was the VP of Biologics at Xilio Therapeutics. He led the Biologics Department, where he developed and executed discovery strategies for new biologics-based therapies and advanced them towards clinical development.

Earlier in his career, Ertan held important roles at Takeda Oncology. As a Principal Scientist and Senior Scientist, he managed antibody discovery campaigns, led technology development projects, and helped build a strong early discovery pipeline in immuno-oncology. He also led and served in biologics and cell therapy discovery project teams. Before Takeda, he led the Biotherapeutics Engineering team at Agensys, a subsidiary of Astellas Pharma. His team discovered enfortumab, which became the FDA-approved PADCEV, a nectin-4 ADC. Prior to Agensys at Boehringer Ingelheim, Ertan worked on developing proprietary bispecific antibody formats, with several molecules now in various clinical phases.

Ertan earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey, and his Ph.D. in physics from the City University of New York. He held post-doctoral positions at Weill Cornell Medical College and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Ertan has numerous publications and patents, including contributions to the development of bispecific and multifunctional antibodies.

Jim eagerly embraced the opportunity to join the founding team of InduPro. The immense potential was clear, and the nascent leadership team created a fantastic synergy.

He brings a proven track record of success on executive leadership teams building and supporting new company infrastructure previously with AlivaMab Discovery Services, Sevion Therapeutics, and Fabrus by segregating administrative distractions from the research teams allowing them to focus on value creation. Prior to moving solely into operations leadership, Jim also concurrently held roles managing lab automation systems, cell line development, and bioprocessing. The insights and experiences gained training and working as a scientist contribute to his effectiveness as an operations executive.

Jim received his PhD in molecular biology from The Scripps Research Institute and a BA from UC Berkeley. This followed diverse career transitions as a qualified nuclear-trained engineering mechanic in the US Navy to industrial chemical plant maintenance mechanic and cellar/vineyard hand with a winery in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Outside of InduPro, Jim strives to become a certified bon vivant enjoying baking and cooking, fermenting anything, and sharing it all with his partner, three kids, and friends over colorful stories he’s still collecting in a life well-lived.

Jeff Palmer joined InduPro as Vice President of Finance in July 2024. Jeff has over 20 years of extensive accounting and finance experience in the life science and biotech industries. Prior to joining InduPro, Jeff most recently served at Ribon Therapeutics as Senior Vice President of Finance, where he provided leadership and oversight for the accounting and finance functions. Prior to Ribon Therapeutics, Jeff worked at Foundation Medicine serving in roles of increasing responsibility; including Vice President of Finance, where he oversaw the corporate accounting and finance functions. Prior to Foundation Medicine, Jeff worked at Alere serving in various corporate finance and business unit roles.

Jeff holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of New Hampshire. Jeff is a Certified Public Accountant and began his career at Arthur Andersen.

Sally Johnson joined InduPro as Chief People Officer in January 2025, bringing over 25 years of leadership experience in human resources. Before InduPro, she served as Chief People Officer at Ribon Therapeutics and led HR for the Global Functions organization at Novartis Biomedical Research. Sally’s career also includes roles supporting global teams at EMD Millipore and Mercer as well as Liberty Mutual and Arthur Andersen.

A native of the UK, Sally holds a B.A. in French from the University of Liverpool and is a certified Organizational, Relationship, and Systems coach. She is passionate about driving organizational culture, leadership development, team effectiveness, and talent growth for all employees.

Avirup is the VP of Corporate Development. In this role he leads business development and other corporate functions. Avirup joins us from Iktos Inc., where he served as the Chief Business Officer. Prior to Iktos, Avirup served as the Vice President and head of Business Development at Chinook Therapeutics until its acquisition by Novartis Pharmaceuticals. Before joining Chinook Therapeutics in 2022, Avirup spent 18 years at Novartis where he served as a drug discovery leader prior to transitioning to portfolio  management and business development. Avirup received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. In his spare time, he enjoys cooking and going on long bike rides.

Prakash Raman, Ph.D. has over two decades of biopharmaceutical business development and executive leadership experience, blending his scientific background, program and portfolio management and strong business development experience to lead and support biopharma companies. Prakash joined as CEO of InduPro in April 2024 after serving as President and CEO of Ribon Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on first-in-class small molecule drugs for Oncology and Immunology targeting the PARP family of enzymes, from Feb 2022 to March 2024.

Prior to joining Ribon, Prakash served as Senior Partner, Chief Business Development Officer at Flagship Pioneering from October 2019 to February 2022, where he leveraged the platforms and assets in Flagship’s network to generate opportunities for significant value creation. Dr. Raman joined Flagship after spending nearly fourteen years at Novartis, most recently as Vice President, Global Head of Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) Business Development and Licensing. During his time at Novartis, Dr. Raman was instrumental in forging key collaborations in immuno-oncology, executing many out-licensing opportunities and guiding the acquisitions of Advanced Accelerator Applications, Endocyte, IFM Tre and Selexys. In addition, he has led cross-functional drug discovery and early development project teams that successfully progressed compounds to clinical testing in patients. Prior to Novartis, Dr. Raman spent six years as a Senior Scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and two years as a post-doctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute.

Prakash completed his undergraduate work at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and received his Ph.D. in Organic and Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology and Structural Biology, Stanford School of Medicine

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