About Us

Craig brings to Asher Bio more than 31 years in the biopharmaceutical industry, including a variety of research, business, and commercial roles, and continues to be passionate about building great teams to enable translation of scientific innovation into benefits for patients. Craig currently serves as the C.E.O. and Acting Chairman of the Board of Asher Bio. Also, he serves on the Boards of Directors for Aridis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ARDS), Inipharm Inc., and the Northern California Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Previously Craig was Chief Business Officer at Forty Seven Inc. (NASDAQ: FTSV) and served on the Board of Tobira Therapeutics (NASDAQ: TBRA).

Prior to Forty Seven, Craig spent 21 years at Gilead Sciences in leadership roles, including Vice President of Commercial Strategy, Senior Director of Corporate Development, Senior Director and Head of Biology Research, where he contributed to the development, launch, and commercialization of 12 F.D.A. approved drugs.

Before Gilead, Craig spent three years in the Protein Engineering Department at Genentech as a postdoctoral fellow. He has published over 50 scientific articles and is an inventor on three issued patents. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, a B.Sc. (Hons) in Biochemistry from Massey University, New Zealand, and an M.B.A. from Golden Gate University in San Francisco, CA.

Ivana is the Chief Scientific Officer, Board Member, and Co-Founder of Asher Bio. She is leading discovery, immuno-biology, and early development of Asher Bio’s immuno-oncology and autoimmunity programs.

Prior to founding Asher Bio, Ivana was Head of Cytokine Biology at Pfizer’s Cancer Immunology Discovery Unit, where she spearheaded novel programs in the area of cytokine immunotherapy of cancer. During her tenure at Pfizer, Ivana was also involved in T-cell redirection programs, including CD3 bispecific antibodies and allogeneic CAR-T cell therapies. Previously, Ivana held roles of increasing responsibility at Celgene and Tempero Pharmaceuticals, a GSK company. At Celgene, she led cell therapy programs with allogeneic NK cells (PNK-007) and autologous T cells from preclinical development through IND filing and phase I.

Ivana earned her Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard University under Dr. Anjana Rao, the world leader in understanding the regulation of cytokine genes in T cells, and a B.S. in Biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts. She conducted postdoctoral research in the lab of Dan Littman at the New York University. Ivana is passionate about bringing drugs to patients in record time.

Kyle Elrod brings over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and life science industries to Asher Bio. Kyle currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer and is responsible for finance, human resources, IT facilities, and contract manufacturing operations.

Previously Kyle served as the Senior Vice President of Planning and Operations of Forty Seven Inc. (NASDAQ: FTSV), where Kyle managed company operations, project management, human resources, and alliance management. Prior to Forty Seven Inc., Kyle spent eight years at Virobay in roles of increasing responsibility culminating in Senior Vice President of Project Management and Operations. In that role, he was responsible for alliance management, company operations and successfully brought three protease inhibitors into clinical trials. Before Virobay, Kyle worked at Life Technologies as both an R&D Leader and a Program Director developing high throughput genetic sequencers. Prior to Life Technologies, he served in positions of increasing responsibility at Celera Pharmaceuticals in South San Francisco, culminating in a position as the Director of Research and Development Projects. During his 12 years at Celera, Kyle published over 22 scientific articles and was an inventor on four issued patents. He received a B.A. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Kyle joined Asher Bio because the team working on their cis-targeting technology is one of the best he’s seen, and he is excited to see the technology move towards the clinic.

Andy Yeung is passionate about carrying out innovative drug design and research to deliver more effective immunotherapy drugs to patients. He brings extensive experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, focusing on discovery and development. Andy co-founded Asher Bio in 2019 and currently serves as the C.T.O. and Board observer of Asher Bio, responsible for initiating drug concepts and leading the engineering and technology development of antibody and cytokine candidates.

Previously Andy spent ten years at Pfizer, most recently holding the title, Director of Biotherapeutic Design and Discovery. Andy led protein engineering efforts for programs in metabolic diseases, ophthalmology, infectious diseases, and oncology (CD3 bispecific, CAR-T, immune-oncology antibodies and cytokines). Andy’s work directly led to five preclinical research projects advancing through IND-enabling development into the clinic.

Prior to Pfizer, Andy spent four years in the Antibody Engineering Department at Genentech as a postdoctoral fellow. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and is an inventor on 15 issued patents and patent applications. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical engineering and M.S. in Chemical Engineering Practice from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Don brings nearly 15 years of biotechnology and pharmaceutical business development experience to Asher and is responsible for all corporate development activities including partnering and alliance management, as well as corporate and commercial strategy, corporate legal, and will contribute to our investor, public and media relations activities.

Previously Don served as Vice President and Global Head of Oncology Partnering for Roche and Genentech where he was responsible for all oncology pipeline business development activities.  Don held various positions of increasing responsibility during his nearly 12 years at Genentech, including leading partnering efforts for gRED’s Immunology and Infectious Disease R&D groups.  Prior to joining Genentech, Don spent three years in the Corporate Development group at Genzyme.

Don has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from University of Cambridge, a MBA from Wharton, University of Pennsylvania, and a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from Imperial College, London.

Priti Patel MD, is the Interim Consultant CMO of AsherBio and is responsible for overseeing the clinical development organization and clinical trials. She is an experienced and successful leader with a depth of knowledge spanning multiple oncology indications. She has experience in large and small biotechnology/pharmaceutical companies, spanning global roles and has a track record of successfully developing, evaluating, and advancing cancer therapeutics.

Most recently, Dr. Patel served as Chief Medical Officer at Neoelukin Therapeutics where she was responsible for building the clinical development organization and leading the development of NL-201, the first de novo protein, a combined IL-2 and IL-15 agonist, in cancer patients.

Prior to this, she was at AstraZeneca, where she served as Vice President, Head of Hematology Clinical Development. Previously, she served as Senior Medical Director and Executive Medical Director at Acerta Pharma before its acquisition by AstraZeneca. During her time at AstraZeneca and Acerta, Dr. Patel led clinical development strategy and trial execution of investigational therapeutics for blood cancers. This included leading more than six Phase 3 studies and twenty Phase 1/2 studies for acalabrutinib as monotherapy and combination therapy for solid tumors and hematological cancers with global approvals in chronic lymphocytic leukemia and mantle cell lymphoma. Prior to that, Dr. Patel served as Medical Director at Onyx Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Amgen) where she helped guide strategic clinical development efforts in the development and approval of carfilzomib, an FDA-approved therapy for the treatment of multiple myeloma.

Dr. Patel has co-authored numerous scientific papers in peer reviewed medical journals. She received her B.A. and Masters in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University and her M.D. from the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Dr. Patel completed an internship and residency in internal medicine and post-doctoral fellowships in hematology and medical oncology at Stanford University Hospital.

For the past 20 years, Sheldon Okada has been in the biopharmaceutical industry serving in various commercial and financial roles while also being passionate about supporting development and patient access to transformative therapies. He currently serves as the Vice President of Business and Commercial Strategy at Asher Bio. Prior to Asher Bio, he was Senior Director of Commercial Strategy at Forty Seven Inc. (NASDAQ: FTSV), where he established the commercial function, supported development strategies, and worked on early launch preparations for their lead program in Oncology.

Earlier on in his career, Sheldon spent 14 years at Gilead Sciences in roles of increasing responsibilities within the Commercial Strategy and Financial Planning groups. During his time at Gilead, he contributed to the launch of four F.D.A. approved drugs and supported development programs in infectious diseases, liver disease, and inflammation.

Sheldon received his M.S. in Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology and a B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.

Jamie currently serves as a regulatory consultant for Asher Bio, bringing nearly 20 years of biopharmaceutical experience drawn from industry, academia, and the FDA. Jamie is the founder and principal regulatory consultant of Cross BioStrategies where he assists companies with product development strategies, regulatory filings, and regulatory leadership. Prior to consulting, Jamie served as Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs at Halozyme Therapeutics, leading product strategy for assets in global late-stage oncology development. At Forty Seven Inc., he served as Head of Regulatory Affairs and supported the clinical program expansion of magrolimab while managing regulatory, CMC QA and medical writing functions. He started his industry career at Genentech in Drug Safety and then Oncology Regulatory Affairs, where he managed the team that supported the BLA filing for atezolizumab in urothelial cancer. He previously worked at the FDA for five years in project management supporting both NDA/IND reviews and the development of new policies and guidance. Jamie earned his Ph.D. in health outcomes research from the University of Washington, M.S. in immunology from the University of California at Davis, and a Bachelor’s degree in biology and French from Tufts University.

Julie is Vice President, Head of CMC and is responsible for drug supply activities across the portfolio including process development, manufacturing and distribution of clinical trial materials. She brings 25 years of experience in clinical and commercial stage biopharmaceutical development within both biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Immediately prior to Asher Bio she built and led CMC cross-functional teams at Allogene, which were responsible for defining allogenic cell therapy drug program strategy as well as delivering clinical supply. Prior to her work in the cell therapy space, she was Executive Director, Head of Process Development and Manufacturing at OncoMed, which had a substantial pipeline of partnered clinical stage biologic candidates focused on oncology and immuno-oncology. Before OncoMed she held scientific positions in Process Development at Amgen, Boehringer Ingelheim, Abgenix and other start-up companies, focused on biologic formulation development and drug product manufacturing/ site transfers. In these scientific roles she also led cross-functional product teams and was the global technical leader of Vectibix^® during the US and ex-US launches, including all ex-US regulatory filings, approvals and global post-launch regulatory submissions. Julie has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of California, Santa Cruz and a B.S. in Biochemistry from Washington State University.