Our Team | Inhibrx | Meet our experts in biotherapeutics.

Mark P. Lappe

Founder, Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Lappe co-founded Inhibrx in 2010 and has served as Chief Executive Officer since our inception. He also serves as the Chairman of our board of directors. Mr. Lappe has extensive expertise in the biotechnology industry with over 30 years of experience in executive management, investment management, and executive recruiting, having built the executive teams of over 40 start-up biotechnology and medical device companies. Prior to founding Inhibrx, Mr. Lappe was the founder and Managing Partner of Efficacy Biotech Fund, a fund focused on strategic investment in public biotechnology companies.

Brendan P. Eckelman, Ph.D.

Founder, EVP Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Eckelman co-founded Inhibrx in April 2010 and currently serves as our Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy. From August 2015 to November 2018, he served as our Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Biotherapeutics. From 2010 until August 2015, Dr. Eckelman served as our Vice President of Scientific Operations. He has served as a member of our board of directors since April 2018.

Dr. Eckelman is the head of our research team, overseeing several key functional areas spanning discovery to therapeutic development. In addition, he has critical responsibilities in corporate strategy and operations. Prior to co-founding Inhibrx, Dr. Eckelman was a Research Investigator in the biotherapeutics group at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation. He conducted his graduate research at the Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and received a Ph.D. in Molecular Pathology from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), School of Medicine. Dr. Eckelman received his B.S. in Molecular Biology and his M.S. in Biology from UCSD.

Quinn Deveraux, Ph.D.

Founder

As one of our co-founders, Dr. Deveraux leads target identification and validation, as well as therapeutic lead selection, and oversees our pipeline development strategy. Prior to founding Inhibrx, he spent 10 years at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF). Dr. Deveraux led groups of Ph.D./M.D. level investigators in the conception and generation of novel target identification and validation platforms. He was a key member of the team that transitioned the first GNF therapeutic antibody from bench-top to clinical trials. His research on cell death at the Stanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute has been highly cited. Dr. Deveraux received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Utah School of Medicine.

Klaus W. Wagner, M.D., Ph.D.

EVP Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Wagner has served as our Chief Medical Officer since August 2015 and leads the clinical translation of our biotherapeutic pipeline. From November 2012 until August 2015, Dr. Wagner served as a medical oncologist at Banner MD Anderson Cancer Center and as Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Thoracic, Head & Neck Medical Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, where he led cancer immunotherapy trials as the local principal investigator. From July 2009 until September 2011, he trained at MD Anderson Cancer Center as a fellow in Medical Oncology.

Dr. Wagner’s scientific work at Genentech Inc. and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation focused on drug discovery and predictive biomarker development. He received the highest academic honors and was a scholar of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. Dr. Wagner received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen in Germany.

Kelly Deck, C.P.A.

Chief Financial Officer

Ms. Deck leads our accounting, finance, IT and investor relations functions. She joined Inhibrx in October 2018, bringing over 15 years of experience in the life science industry. Prior to joining our team, Ms. Deck held various accounting and finance positions of increasing responsibility with Apricus Biosciences Inc., Hologic Inc., Gen-Probe Inc., and Cytori Therapeutics Inc. Ms. Deck holds a B.S. and M.S. in Accounting and is an active licensed Certified Public Accountant in the state of California.

Ashraf Amanullah, Ph.D.

EVP, Chief Technical Operations Officer

Dr. Amanullah is responsible for the late-stage activities required for the commercialization of our programs. He brings more than 20 years of experience in process development, technical operations, cGMP clinical manufacturing, commercialization and life cycle management of antibody therapeutics, vaccines, gene therapy, cell-based therapeutics, and recombinant proteins.

Prior to joining Inhibrx, Dr. Amanullah held executive and senior-level positions with aTyr Pharma, Gilead Sciences, Genentech, and Merck. He’s the author of 55 peer-reviewed publications, and his work has been presented at over 120 conferences. He’s on the editorial board of the Biotechnology & Bioengineering and mAb journals. Dr. Amanullah received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Birmingham (UK) and conducted postdoctoral studies with the University of Birmingham, Novo Nordisk, Merck Sharpe & Dohme, and University College London.

David Matly, M.B.A.

EVP, Chief Commercial Officer

Mr. Matly brings extensive commercial launch and leadership experience across both orphan diseases and oncology. Mr. Matly joins us from Novartis where he served as the global Vice President of the MDS/AML franchise, one of the largest potential growth areas of Novartis Oncology, leading the launch preparation of their flagship program, as well as ensuring commercial success of the entire AML/MDS portfolio. Prior to this role, Mr. Matly was the global commercial lead of the sickle cell disease therapeutic area, leading the launch of ADAKVEO, which at the time was the first approved novel therapy in almost two decades. Also at Novartis, Mr. Matly was the global commercial lead of PROMACTA/REVOLADE, the largest growth driver of Novartis Oncology. Mr. Matly began his career at Eli Lilly, holding several positions of increasing responsibility in sales and marketing, most notably leading the US launch of CYRAMZA in metastatic lung cancer.

Mr. Matly received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University and his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Jeffrey Jensen

EVP Clinical Operations

In 2020, Mr. Jensen joined our team as Executive VP of Clinical Operations and is responsible for the success of clinical programs through leadership, strategic oversight, and team direction. From 2016 through 2019, he served as Senior VP of Clinical Development at La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co, where he led the clinical and global safety teams, achieving FDA and EMA approval for an investigational synthetic human peptide (Giapreza®).

Mr. Jensen has over 30 years of experience in drug development at biotech and pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. and Europe. Previously, he was Vice President of Clinical Operations and Clinical Lead at Pfizer, leading the development operations team for axitinib (Inlyta®), and held senior positions at several biotech and contract research companies (e.g., Metabasis, Excaliard, Syneos, PPD, Quintiles). He specializes in managing global teams and leading partnerships with research investigators and key opinion leaders. Mr. Jensen received his B.S. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Oregon State University.

Leah Pollema, J.D.

VP, General Counsel

Ms. Pollema serves as our General Counsel, managing our legal affairs. Prior to joining Inhibrx, she spent 10 years in private law practice with two large full-service law firms where she counseled both public and private companies in a range of transactional and corporate matters, with a focus on mergers and acquisitions, venture capital financings, corporate governance, and general corporate matters. Ms. Pollema received her Juris Doctor from the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.

David Kao, PharmD, M.B.A., RPh

VP, Regulatory Affairs

Dr. Kao joined our team in 2021 as VP of Regulatory Affairs. He brings over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience in drug development, overseeing programs from initial IND submission to marketing registration and life-cycle management. Prior to Inhibrx, Dr. Kao served as a regulatory lead collaborating on the design of integrated development strategies to support global registration for novel therapies in the oncology, immunology, neurology and cardiovascular therapeutic areas. He comes with considerable regulatory experience in the management of complex clinical programs and in the preparation of regulatory marketing applications from global organizations including Eisai, Roche, Daiichi-Sankyo and Celgene. He most recently served as Development Program Leader at BMS, responsible for the successful delivery of all aspects of drug development for a specific immunology project. Dr. Kao is a registered Pharmacist and received his BS in Pharmacy from Rutgers University, MBA in Marketing from Rutgers Business School, and PharmD from Shenandoah University.

Jack Tsai, M.D., M.B.A.

VP, Business Development

Dr. Tsai leads our business development, portfolio strategy, and formation of new business ventures. He is a seasoned executive that brings more than 15 years of oncology leadership and biopharma industry expertise in business development, search and evaluation, marketing, and new product planning. While at Sanofi Genzyme and Takeda, Dr. Tsai was responsible for licensing deals and acquisitions with an aggregate value of over $2 billion. His role included activities that resulted in global co-development programs, worldwide collaborative commercialization, while also enabling the transition of innovative early-stage research to late-stage development. He has an outstanding track record of bringing novel treatment modalities to patients, including immuno-oncology therapies that have changed cancer treatment.

Dr. Tsai holds an M.D. from Tufts University School of Medicine and serves as a member of its faculty, where for over a decade he has been teaching medical students curricula on clinical and integrative medicine. He received his M.B.A. from MIT Sloan School of Management, and his B.S. in Molecular Genetics from the University of Rochester.