ABOUT US

One Pathway, Many Possibilities

Our team is advancing first-in-class assets across multiple modalities:

  • A T cell engager (NPX372) engineered with wide therapeutic window and purpose-built design
  • An antibody drug conjugate (NPX125) featuring a proprietary linker and highly potent payload
  • A multi-functional checkpoint inhibitor (NPX887) that blocks immune suppression and restores activation

All are guided by a biomarker-driven approach to ensure the right therapy reaches the right patient.

Our Team

Executive Team
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Ivan Cheung, MBA

Chief Executive Officer

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Leena Gandhi, MD, PhD

Chief Medical Officer

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Tatiana Novobrantseva, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

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Bijan Etemad-Gilbertson, PhD

VP of Innovation

Board of Directors

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Detlev Biniszkiewicz, PhD

Chairman of the Board

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Axel Hoos, MD, PhD

Board Member

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Paulina Hill, PhD

Board Member

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Rakhshita Dhar

Board Member

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R. Jacob Vogelstein, PhD

Board Member

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Ivan Cheung, MBA

Board Member

Our Scientific Founders

The combined expertise and research of Gordon Freeman, PhD (Dana-Farber Cancer Institute) and XingXing Zang, PhD (Albert Einstein College of Medicine) form the basis of NextPoint Therapeutics. We are building a world-class team to help us realize the full potential of their exciting discoveries and to shape the future of immuno-oncology and tumor targeting.

I’m fascinated by the HHLA2 pathway because it looks like an alternative, non-redundant pathway than PD-L1 for turning off the anti-tumor immune response. I want Nextpoint to test whether it can be as effective as blocking PD-L1. Can we catch lightning twice?

Gordon Freeman, PhD

Learn More

From the discovery of the HHLA2 immune checkpoint pathway in 2013 to the first-in-class clinical trial targeting this pathway in 2023, NextPoint Therapeutics is revolutionizing the landscape of immuno-oncology and offering new hope for a broad spectrum of human cancer patients unresponsive to existing PD-1/L1 inhibitors.

XingXing Zang, PhD

Learn More

Investors & Partners

We’re proud to collaborate with visionary investors and esteemed partners who share our commitment to advancing the field of precision immuno-oncology and tumor-targeting therapeutics.

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Executive Team

Team photo ivan cheung v1
Executive Team

Ivan Cheung, MBA

Chief Executive Officer

Ivan Cheung is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and a member of the Board of Directors at NextPoint Therapeutics. He previously served as the U.S. CEO of Eisai, where he guided the significant growth of the North America business to over $1.5 billion in revenue. Under his leadership, lenvatinib was successively launched in a range of tumor types as monotherapy as well as in combination with a PD-1 inhibitor. Ivan also led the global R&D and first-ever full U.S. approval of a monoclonal antibody therapeutic to treat the underlying pathophysiology of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease with lecanemab. His stewardship led to the first wide reimbursement access from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for this class of medicines. In addition, Ivan held leadership roles in business development, corporate strategy, finance, and talent management at Eisai. Prior to Eisai, he advised pharmaceutical and biotech companies at Booz Allen Hamilton. Ivan received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSE from Duke University.

Executive Team
Team photo leena gandhi v1
Executive Team
Leena Gandhi, MD, PhD
Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Leena Gandhi is the Chief Medical Officer at NextPoint Therapeutics. As a faculty member at Dana-Farber, she held positions in both the Thoracic Oncology Program and Early Drug Development Center where she led the clinical trials efforts in thoracic oncology. Dr. Gandhi later became the Director of Thoracic Medical Oncology at New York University. In her subsequent role as Vice President of Immuno-Oncology Development at Eli Lilly, she led the development of novel immuno-oncology agents across cancer types before returning to Dana-Farber, where she most recently served as the Director of the Center for Cancer Therapeutic Innovation, a cross- malignancy novel therapeutics hub. She received her PhD from UC Berkeley and her MD from NYU, followed by postgraduate training at Massachusetts General Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Executive Team
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Executive Team
Tatiana Novobrantseva, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer

Tatiana Novobrantseva is the Chief Scientific Officer at NextPoint Therapeutics. Most recently she served as the CSO of Immuno-oncology at Moderna. In the prior role, she co-founded Verseau Therapeutics and served as CSO, guiding programs from target identification to an advanced novel therapeutics pipeline. Tatiana also consulted on drug development program for various companies throughout the years. At Jounce, she directed programs on immune system reactivation against cancer. Tatiana held roles at Alnylam and Biogen, uncovering the critical role of B cells in fibrosis, advancing siRNA delivery, and leading a dendritic cell cancer vaccine initiative.

She earned her Ph.D. in B cell immunology from the University of Cologne in Germany in the Laboratory of Klaus Rajewsky. She holds a Diploma in Engineering in Physics and a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Executive Team
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Executive Team
Bijan Etemad-Gilbertson, PhD
VP of Innovation

Bijan Etemad-Gilbertson was the first full-time employee at NextPoint and has served as NextPoint’s Vice President of Innovation since 2024. Bijan brings over 25 years of pharma and biotech industry experience and is a proven leader in early drug discovery and development with a focus on novel cancer immunotherapies. Bijan has advanced multiple development candidates into the clinic and co-authored numerous publications and patents.

Bijan holds a Ph.D. degree in Genetics from Cornell University and performed his Post-Doctoral training at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Board of Directors

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Board of Directors
Detlev Biniszkiewicz, PhD

Chairman of the Board

Dr. Detlev Biniszkiewicz, Managing Director at MPM BioImpact and current Chairman of NextPoint Therapeutics, brings extensive oncology and immuno-oncology expertise to his role. Formerly, he served as President and CEO of Surface Oncology (NASDAQ: SURF), guiding the organization through to clinical development and public offering. At AstraZeneca, he was a leader of its Oncology Unit, contributing to the development of breakthrough medicines like Lynparza® and Tagrisso®, two innovative medicines that help thousands of patients suffering from cancer. His group transformed AstraZeneca’s Oncology pipeline through licensing deals, collaborations, and external research. He also held roles at Novartis, including Global Head of Portfolio. Early in his career, he worked at the Boston Consulting Group and conducted academic research at MIT’s Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Board of Directors

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Board of Directors

Axel Hoos, MD, PhD

Board Member

Dr. Axel Hoos is a distinguished physician-scientist, executive, entrepreneur and leader who currently serves as CEO of Scorpion Therapeutics. He is recognized as an Immuno-Oncology pioneer for his work on the development of the anti-CTLA-4 antibody ipilimumab, the first FDA-approved checkpoint immunotherapy, and the creation of a new development paradigm for cancer immunotherapies, which launched the field of Immuno-Oncology.

Dr. Hoos previously served as R&D Governance Chair and Head of Oncology at GSK, and Medical Lead for Immunology/Oncology at BMS. He currently serves as a trustee on the Board of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, Director on the Board of NextPoint Therapeutics, and member of the Scientific Advisory Board and Co-Director of the Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium at the Cancer Research Institute.

Board of Directors

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Board of Directors
Paulina Hill, PhD
Board Member

Paulina joined Sanofi Ventures in 2022 with a background in early stage biotech investing. Prior to joining Sanofi, Paulina was a Principal on the investment team at Omega Funds where she served as the board director/observer for Scorpion Therapeutics, Arrakis Therapeutics, IFM, and additionally led or co-led Omega’s investments in Theseus, Ikena, Synthekine and Vanqua Bio.

Previous to Omega Funds, Paulina began her career with Polaris Partners. Paulina served on the boards of Kala Pharmaceuticals, Neuronetics and Lyra Therapeutics, Microchips Biotech, Arsenal Medical and CAMP4 Therapeutics, where she was the founding CEO. Paulina completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Robert Langer’s lab at MIT. Paulina completed her PhD in Molecular Medicine from Wake Forest School of Medicine.

Board of Directors

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Board of Directors
Rakhshita Dhar
Board Member

Rakhshita Dhar is Senior Director of Venture Investments Health at Leaps by Bayer. She joined the team in 2021 and is responsible for search & evaluation and healthcare focused investment for Leaps. She currently sits on the board of Deka Biosciences, Gro Bio, Bloom Sciences, ReCode Therapeutics, Vesigen Therapeutics and NextPoint Therapeutics.

Prior to joining Leaps, Rakhshita was Director of Business Development at Roche Pharmaceuticals where she led collaborations with Dyno Therapeutics and Rheos Biosciences. She also spent a few years at MassBio developing an accelerator program for life-science start-ups.

She got her Undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Mumbai University and her Masters in Molecular Biology from Georgetown University.

Board of Directors

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Board of Directors
R. Jacob Vogelstein, PhD
Board Member

Jacob Vogelstein is the Co-Founder & Managing Partner of Catalio Capital Management, LP. He is primarily responsible for managing the firm and for making investments in private breakthrough biomedical technology companies. He serves on the Investment Committee of Catalio’s flagship Nexus strategy and on the firmwide Management Committee.

Jacob currently serves on the Boards of Boost Neuroscience, Blackrock Neurotech, Iambic Therapeutics, ManaT Bio, Nextpoint and Pheast Therapeutics.

Jacob has received widespread recognition for his innovative work in biomedical engineering including the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering.

Jacob earned his BSc. degree in Bio-Electrical Engineering from Brown University and his Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University.

Board of Directors

Team photo ivan cheung v1
Board of Directors

Ivan Cheung, MBA

Board Member

Ivan Cheung is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and a member of the Board of Directors at NextPoint Therapeutics. He previously served as the U.S. CEO of Eisai, where he guided the significant growth of the North America business to over $1.5 billion in revenue. Under his leadership, lenvatinib was successively launched in a range of tumor types as monotherapy as well as in combination with a PD-1 inhibitor. Ivan also led the global R&D and first-ever full U.S. approval of a monoclonal antibody therapeutic to treat the underlying pathophysiology of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease with lecanemab. His stewardship led to the first wide reimbursement access from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for this class of medicines. In addition, Ivan held leadership roles in business development, corporate strategy, finance, and talent management at Eisai. Prior to Eisai, he advised pharmaceutical and biotech companies at Booz Allen Hamilton. Ivan received an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BSE from Duke University.

Scientific Founders
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Scientific Founders

Gordon Freeman, PhD

Scientific Founder

Gordon Freeman, Ph.D. is in the Department of Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Freeman earned his BA in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and PhD in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University.

Dr. Freeman’s research identified the major pathways that control the immune response by inhibiting T cell activation (PD-L1/PD-1 and B7-2/CTLA-4) or stimulating T cell activation (B7-2/CD28). In 2000, Dr. Freeman discovered PD-L1 and PD-L2, and showed they were ligands for PD-1, thus defining the PD-1 pathway and the drug target: block the interaction. He showed the function of PD-1 was to inhibit immune responses and that blockade enhanced immune responses. He showed that PD-L1 is highly expressed on many solid tumors such as breast and lung, as well as some hematologic malignancies and allows these tumors to inhibit immune attack. This work provided the critical translational insights for development of a successful strategy for cancer immunotherapy – blocking the PD-1-ligand interaction. More recently, he identified the HHLA2/KIR3DL3 pathway as an alternative immunoinhibitory pathway for cancer immune evasion.

Dr. Freeman has published over 400 scientific papers and holds over 90 US patents on immunotherapies. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a Fellow of the AACR and SITC Academies. He has received numerous awards including the 2014 William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Tumor Immunology, 2017 Warren Alpert Foundation award, the 2020 Richard Smalley, MD, memorial award, and the 2024 AACR-CRI Lloyd J. Old Award in Cancer Immunology for his work that led to development of PD-L1/PD-1 pathway blockade for cancer immunotherapy.

Scientific Founders
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Scientific Founders
XingXing Zang, PhD
Scientific Founder

XingXing Zang is Professor, Louis Goldstein Swan Chair in Cancer Research, and founding Director of Institute for Immunotherapy at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. His research has centered on new immune checkpoints, spanning from fundamental biology to new immunotherapies. Several novel drugs from his lab are currently in clinical trials in a broad spectrum of human cancers. He discovered new members of the B7 family and CD28 family including B7x, HHLA2 and TMIGD2, discovered the HHLA2-KIR3DL3 immunosuppressive pathway, discovered the HHLA2-TMIGD2 immunostimulatory pathway, demonstrated the biology and therapeutic potential of the KIR2DL5-PVR pathway, and significantly contributed to other immune checkpoints B7-H3, Tim-3, ICOS, PD-L1/PD-1, BTNL2, etc. He is the scientific founder of several drug companies.

Dr. Zang received a M.Med. from Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine in China, a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh in the lab of Rick M. Maizels in Scotland, and had postdoctoral training with James P. Allison at the University of California at Berkeley and at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.