Synthekine CEO and leadership

Debanjan has served as Synthekine’s President and Chief Executive Officer since the company’s formation in 2019. 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. Debanjan helped advance CytomX from an early stage platform technology to multi-asset clinical-stage company, led financing efforts and closed multiple collaborations with Bristol Myers Squibb, AbbVie, Amgen, Pfizer and Immunogen that generated over $500 million in upfront payments and up to $5 billion in milestones. Prior to joining CytomX in 2011, he 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. Debanjan received his MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and his BS in chemical engineering and biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Martin has served as Synthekine’s Chief Development Officer since the company’s formation in 2019. He is an expert in immuno-oncology, with in-depth experience in preclinical, translational, and clinical research and development of immuno-oncology and cytokine therapies. Prior to Synthekine, Martin co-founded ARMO Biosciences, where he oversaw pipeline development including pegilodecakin (pegylated IL-10) from early-target discovery through clinical development, and was the architect of its multicohort Phase 1 design for expedited Phase 1 to Phase 3 development. Martin identified integrated immune-modulating strategies for the treatment of cancer, including the invigoration of tumor-specific T-cell immunity concomitant with inhibition of tumor-promoting inflammation. Prior to ARMO, he developed immune therapies for the treatment of cancer at DNAX Research in Palo Alto, now Merck Research Labs, and held positions at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, the UCSF Cancer Center and Boehringer Ingelheim. Martin earned his M.D. and medical license from the University of Erlangen, Germany. He performed his postdoctoral research at the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, Austria.

Dr. Rizvi is an internationally recognized leader in cancer immunotherapy drug development whose clinical research has helped deliver FDA approvals of several landmark immunotherapies, including nivolumab in squamous lung cancer and pembrolizumab in non-small cell lung cancer. He will lead Synthekine’s efforts in advancing its maturing pipeline through clinical investigation.

As a medical oncologist and expert in clinical immuno-oncology, Dr. Rizvi’s research into mechanisms of sensitivity and resistance to immunotherapy has laid the foundation to the understanding of clinical responses to immune checkpoint inhibitors. Dr. Rizvi conducted clinical studies of novel immunotherapy drugs and immunotherapy combinations, including the landmark study to demonstrate a correlation between mutations and neoantigens with durable benefit to the immune-checkpoint blockade. His work has been published in leading journals including Science, Nature, and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Rizvi most recently served as the Price Family Professor of Medicine, Director of Thoracic Oncology, and Co-Director of Cancer Immunotherapy at Columbia University Medical Center. In addition, Dr. Rizvi was recently Research Director of the Price Family Comprehensive Center for Chest Care at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Rizvi received his medical doctorate from the University of Manitoba Faculty of Medicine and completed his residency training at the University of Manitoba Affiliated Hospital and fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School. He was a co-founder of Gritstone Oncology.