Pioneering a new category of drugs that precisely target the site of disease while remaining invisible to the rest of the body

Dextera Biosciences is developing a new category of drugs, Synthetic D-Proteins, to overcome the limitations of current drug modalities. Synthetic D-Proteins exhibit antibody-like specificity to a single therapeutic target but with the broad distribution of small molecules, all while being otherwise “invisible” to the rest of the body. The consequences are that we can deliver sustained antibody-like activity specifically to interstitial targets, enable oral delivery with complete metabolic stability, and extend therapeutic durability with no immunogenicity. We are focusing on debilitating diseases where significant unmet need remains due to the limitations of current drugs.

Our people

Gregory Went, PhD

Chief Executive Officer and Chairman
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Sarah Chapman

Director of Corporate Strategy
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Jack Nguyen, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer
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Julia Williams

Director of Finance
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Kyle Landgraf, PhD

Senior Director of Discovery Research
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board of DIRECTORS

Gregory Went, PhD

Chairman
CuraGen (Co-founder), Adamas (Co-founder)

Richard Van Den Broek

Founding Board Member
HSMR Advisors, Hambrecht & Quist

Richard Murdock

Board Member, Investor
Teneobio, CellPro, Sangstat Medical, OMT, Kyphon

Risa Stack, PhD

Board Member, Investor
The Production Board, GE Ventures, Menlo Microsystems (Co-founder), Veracyte (Co-founder), Kleiner Perkins

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD

Dev Sidhu, PhD / Scientific Advisory Board Chair, Co-founder

Protein Engineering
University of Toronto, Genentech

Geoff Davis, PhD

Immunology, Human Monoclonal Antibodies
Abgenix (Founder)

Phil Dawson, PhD

Synthetic Peptides
Scripps Institute

Robert Alpern, MD

Nephrology
Yale University, AbbVie (Board of Directors)

David Chernoff, MD/ Medical Advisory Board Chair

Rheumatology
Chiron, Elan, TPG Biotech Ventures, Myriad, Adamas, Setpoint

Hilary Sheevers,
PhD

Nephrology, Toxicology
FDA, Aclairo (Founder), Janssen

Iain McInnes, MD, PhD

Immunology
University of Glasgow

Joel Bader, PhD

AI/ML Modelling, Synthetic Biology
Johns Hopkins

Felix Feng, MD

Radiation Oncology
University of California, San Francisco

Ed Liu, MD

Oncology, Genomics
Jackson Labs

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Gregory Went, PhD

Chief Executive Officer and Chairman

Dr. Gregory Went currently serves as the CEO and Chairman of Dextera Biosciences. He joined in 2020, first as an investor, then stepped into his current role to drive the development of our platform and programs forward. Prior to Dextera, Greg co-founded Adamas Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ADMS), serving as its CEO and Chairman from 2004 to 2019, where the company discovered, developed and launched three commercial products: Namenda XR and Namzaric (with Allergan) and GOCOVRI. Prior to that, he co-founded CuraGen Corporation (NASDAQ: CRGN), one of the first genomics companies, where he co-led the development of CuraGen’s genomics platform and led the corporate partnering efforts.

Greg completed his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. He has published broadly in the fields of surface science, spectroscopy, DNA analysis, genomics, bioinformatics, infectious disease, neuroscience and neurology, and is an inventor on more than 70 issued patents and pending applications.

Sarah Chapman

Director of Corporate Strategy

Sarah Chapman joined in 2021 as the Director of Corporate Strategy for Dextera Biosciences, where she is responsible for business development, market research, and corporate strategy. As part of her role, Sarah leads the evaluation for the best applications for novel Synthetic D-Proteins to address significant patient unmet need.

Prior to Dextera, Sarah supported strategic decision-making across the biopharmaceutical industry in her role as a strategy consultant at ClearView Healthcare Partners and as an independent consultant. Her work has spanned due diligence, partnering and fundraising, drug and franchise evaluation, and overall corporate and business development strategy.

Sarah studied Developmental and Regenerative Biology at Harvard, where she spent time researching at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.

Jack Nguyen, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Jack Nguyen joined Dextera Biosciences in 2021 as the Chief Scientific Officer, leading the development of the Synthetic D-Protein discovery platform and therapeutic candidates.

Jack brings over 20 years’ experience in research and drug development across diverse therapeutic areas including neurology, oncology, inflammation, and virology. Prior to Dextera, he served as Vice President of Research at Adamas Pharmaceuticals, where he led all nonclinical strategy and execution and contributed to the development and approval of GOCOVRI. Jack also founded Catalyst Biosciences and Cavalon Therapeutics.

Jack completed his PhD in Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco and his B.A. in Biology at Grinnell College.

Julia Williams

Director of Finance

Julia Williams joined in 2021 as the Director of Finance for Dextera Biosciences, where she is responsible for financial strategy and operations.

Julia’s experience spans a range of financial operations and strategy roles across the life science and technology industries. Prior to joining Dextera, Julia was a finance and accounting consultant for startups in the Bay Area with Murdock Martell. She also has past experience in financial planning & analysis at Applied Biosystems.

Julia is a Certified Public Accountant in California and a Chartered Management Accountant. She earned her Bachelor of Business Administration from Sheffield Hallam University in England where she originally hails from.

Kyle Landgraf, PhD

Senior Director of Discovery Research

Dr. Kyle Landgraf is the Senior Director of Discovery Research with the goal of driving innovation across our Synthetic D-Protein discovery platform and delivering early therapeutic candidates.

Prior to Dextera, Kyle built therapeutic discovery platforms for multiple companies. As a co-founder of Xyphos Biosciences, he developed an antibody-based approach for controlling CAR-T cells, leading to the acquisition of Xyphos by Astellas in 2019. Previously, Kyle trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Genentech where he worked on advanced protein engineering strategies across both peptide and antibody-like drug scaffolds. His work has resulted in multiple patents and peer-reviewed publications. He holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.