David
Meininger, PhD, MBA

Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer

David Meininger is Chief Executive Officer of Link Immunotherapeutics. David co-founded Link in 2019 and subsequently licensed key assets and technology from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. David’s prior roles include Chief Business Officer at Trianni, Inc., where he executed more than 20 antibody discovery platform license agreements and Executive Director, BD&L at Merck & Co., Inc. where he had global search and evaluation responsibility for biologics technology and regional responsibility for immuno-oncology assets.

David made key contributions to several approved products including the Keytruda companion diagnostic in addition to multiple clinical-stage programs at Merck and Amgen. David’s introduction to antibody therapeutics came via a Post-Doctoral position in Protein Engineering at Genentech. He holds a MBA in Technology Management from the University of Washington, a PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego and a BS in Chemistry from the University of Florida.

Chris
Mehlin, PhD

Co-founder & Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Chris Mehlin is Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder of LINK Immunotherapeutics, a role to which he brings over twenty years of drug discovery experience. Dr. Mehlin is an author on over twenty five publications and is a named inventor on over twenty therapeutic antibody patents, including two (Repatha and Siliq) that have received FDA approval. Before joining LINK, Dr. Mehlin was engaged at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (The Hutch), where the fundamental technology for LINK was developed and subsequently out-licensed. And prior to the Hutch, Dr. Mehlin led a large number of antibody programs at Amgen, integrating the latest in display and transgenic animal technology to develop next-generation therapeutic antibodies.

Ashok
Bandaranayake, PhD

Co-founder & Vice President, Immuno-Oncology

Dr. Ashok Bandaranayake is Vice President of Immuno-Oncology and co-founder of LINK and received his PhD in Immunology from the University of Washington, Seattle. Ashok was Research Faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (New York) where he developed a high-throughput protein production pipeline for the New York Structural Genomics Research Consortium prior to joining the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He specializes in Immunology and automation and his team in the Olson lab was responsible for high throughput protein production, antibody screening and automated T cell killing and cytokine assays as well as in-vivo efficacy studies.

Colin
E. Correnti, PhD

Co-Founder & Vice President, Protein Therapeutics

Dr. Colin Correnti is a biochemist and structural immunologist who specializes in antibody discovery and characterization, protein design and protein biophysics. Colin received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Washington, where he trained in the laboratory of Roland Strong and studied immunology. He has over 12 years of experience developing and applying mammalian expression technologies. As a Senior Scientist in Jim Olson’s lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center he led a highly productive mammalian protein expression core that supported dozens of collaborative project across the University of Washington and the Center. More recently he has led multiple immunotherapy drug discovery efforts that involve antibody discovery and engineering for CAR-T cell and bispecific therapies and is founding member of LINK along with his Fred Hutch colleagues Chris Mehlin, Ashok Bandaranayake and Jim Olson. Colin joined the LINK team as Vice President of Protein Therapeutics in 2021 and leads bispecific discovery alongside his long time friend and colleague Ashok.

Jane
Carter

Director of Operations

Jane Carter is Director of Operations at LINK and brings over 20 years’ experience in antibody discovery research. Prior to joining LINK, Jane was Director of Research Operations for the Molecular Design and Therapeutics Core at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, responsible for driving execution on drug discovery goals across a multi-disciplinary team and delivering on client focused programs. Before the Hutch, Jane was in Biologics Optimization at Amgen where she developed and managed the high-throughput expression pipeline for pre-clinical development of antibodies and bispecifics. Here she contributed to Siliq, Repatha and many pipeline programs.
Jane holds a BS in Applied Biology from the University of Hull, UK.

Roger
Ulrich, PhD

Chairman

Dr. Roger Ulrich is an entrepreneur and biotech executive with more than 35 years of operational and administrative experience within the pharmaceutical industry. In addition to his board membership with Link Immunotherapeutics he is currently a Senior Advisor at Frazier Life Sciences and a Senior Advisor to Biogeneration Ventures. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Lengo Therapeutics, as a Board member of Kartos Therapeutics, and as Founder and Chief Scientific Officer for Phathom Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Ulrich previously served on the Board of Directors and as the Chief Scientific Officer for Acerta Pharma where he helped guide the development of acalabrutinib (Calquence®) until the company was acquired by AstraZeneca for $7B.

Prior to Acerta, he was Founder and Chief Development Officer at Calistoga Pharmaceuticals Inc. where he led the development of idelalisib (Zydelig®) until the company’s acquisition by Gilead Sciences, staying on with Gilead to help guide the transition. Before starting Calistoga, Dr. Ulrich served in various scientific and administrative positions within large pharma companies and contributed to the discovery, development, regulatory review and approval for many approved therapeutics. These positions included Senior Scientific Director with Merck Research Laboratories/Rosetta Inpharmatics, Director of Regulatory Toxicology, Safety Pharmacology, Genetic Toxicology, Cellular and Molecular Toxicology, Microscopy and Microanalysis at Abbott Laboratories, and Senior Scientist with The Upjohn Company and Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc.

Prior to his pharmaceutical industry career he held positions at West Virginia University, Michigan State University, and at Argonne National Laboratories. Dr. Ulrich holds many patents and has authored more than 125 scientific publications. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology/Chemistry and a Masters of Arts in Biomedical Sciences from Western Michigan University. He received a Doctorate in Cellular and Molecular Biology from West Virginia University, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences.

Edward
van Wezel

BioGeneration Ventures

Edward van Wezel is founder and Managing Partner at BioGeneration Ventures (BGV), Naarden, The Netherlands. He has extensive international expertise in pharma and biotech companies and currently serves on the supervisory boards of Synaffix, Staten Biotechnology, Scenic Biotechnology,Confo Therapeutics and TigaTx. Edward was founding investor and board member of Acerta Pharma, a company focussing on the development of a treatment for leukemia that in 2016 was acquired by AstraZeneca. Edward started his industrial career at Chiron Inc. He was a project manager at Johnson & Johnson responsible for product development projects in the oncology franchise and was involved in corporate licensing activities. Since 2000 he gained experience as Chief Executive Officer of several early startup companies. Edward holds a MSc in chemistry from the University of Utrecht and a MSc in biochemical engineering from the Delft University of Technology.

Daniel
O’Connell, MD, PhD

Bristol Myers Squibb

Daniel heads up the Equity and Venture Capital strategy group at BMS, a position he has held since 2020. Prior to BMS, Daniel was an Investment Director at Arix Bioscience where he led biotech investments across a variety of companies developing novel therapeutics. Daniel joined Arix Bioscience from OrbiMed, where he supported investments in companies developing therapeutics and medical devices, covering private as well as public companies. He has focused on novel technologies in earlier stages of development in oncology, orphan diseases, renal, and metabolic disorders.

David
Meininger, PhD, MBA

Link Immunotherapeutics, Inc.

David Meininger is President and Chief Executive Officer of Link Immunotherapeutics. David co-founded Link in 2019 and subsequently licensed key assets and technology from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. David’s prior roles include Chief Business Officer at Trianni, Inc., where he executed more than 20 antibody discovery platform license agreements and Executive Director, BD&L at Merck & Co., Inc. where he had global search and evaluation responsibility for biologics technology and regional responsibility for immuno-oncology assets. David made key contributions to several approved products including the Keytruda companion diagnostic in addition to multiple clinical-stage programs at Merck and Amgen. David’s introduction to antibody therapeutics came via a Post-Doctoral position in Protein Engineering at Genentech. He holds a MBA in Technology Management from the University of Washington, a PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego and a BS in Chemistry from the University of Florida.