Normunity appoints industry leader Debanjan Ray to Board of Directors
Boston, Mass., and West Haven, Conn. – July 10, 2023 – Normunity, Inc., a biotechnology company creating novel precision anti-cancer immunotherapies, today announced the appointment of Debanjan Ray, MBA, to its board of directors. Mr. Ray currently serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of Synthekine, and he has served in leadership roles for multiple biotechnology companies.
“We are excited to welcome Debanjan to our Board of Directors, as he brings exceptional strategic, operational, and transactional leadership as a CEO and senior executive who has played a critical role in building emerging biotech companies,” said Rachel Humphrey, MD, founding Chief Executive Officer of Normunity. “Debanjan’s impressive track record of creating value in the biopharmaceutical industry from the vantage points of his leadership roles at biotech companies will be of tremendous value as Normunity pursues novel mechanisms for precision immuno-oncology medicines and builds a world-class cancer drug company.”
“I am impressed with the potential of Normunity’s new approach to immune normalization to transform cancer immunotherapy and deliver new medicines that can meaningful improve treatment for cancer patients,” said Mr. Ray. “I look forward to working with the other Board members and the Normunity team at this exciting stage of the company’s growth as it advances immunotherapy candidates with novel mechanisms for fighting cancer.”
Mr. Ray has twenty years of experience in high-growth companies in the biopharma industry, including leadership expertise in corporate strategy, portfolio management and fundraising, partnering and M&A transactions. He has served as Synthekine’s President and Chief Executive Officer since the company’s formation in 2019 and over that time has led the growth of Synthekine from an early stage platform company to multi-modality, multi-asset clinical stage company. Before joining Synthekine, he served as Chief Financial Officer and head of corporate development at CytomX Therapeutics, capping an eight-year tenure in roles of increasing responsibility. He helped advance CytomX from an early stage platform technology to multi-asset clinical stage company, led financing efforts and closed multiple collaborations with several leading pharmaceutical companies including Bristol Myers Squibb, AbbVie, and Amgen, that generated over $500 million in upfront payments and up to $5 billion in milestones. Prior to joining CytomX in 2011, Mr. Ray was VP of Business Development at Itero Biopharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, Debanjan held positions in business development at Portola Pharmaceuticals, in the life sciences venture practice at J.P. Morgan Partners and as a business analyst in the healthcare practice at McKinsey & Company. He received his MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and his BS in chemical engineering and biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
About Normunity
Normunity, Inc., is a biotechnology company creating a new class of precision immuno-oncology medicines, called immune normalizers, that target novel mechanisms that free the body’s normal immunity against cancer. Based on an ongoing, interactive academic-biotech partnership with the lab of Dr. Lieping Chen at Yale School of Medicine, Normunity is targeting newly discovered mechanisms of immune disruption in cancer based on proprietary discovery platforms that elucidate the complex interactions between human cancer and the immune system. The company is advancing an emerging pipeline of immune normalizers, including initial drug programs that target mechanisms that drive the exclusion of T-cells from immune-sensitive tumors and other mechanisms that are barriers to normal immune function in cancer. Normunity is located in Boston, Mass. and West Haven, Conn. For more information, please visit www.normunity.com and follow us on LinkedIn.
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