Synthekine Appoints Geoff Nosrati, Ph.D., as Chief Business Officer and Announces Executive Leadership Changes

February 21, 2024 |

4 min read

Synthekine Inc., an engineered cytokine therapeutics company, announced the appointment of Geoff Nosrati, Ph.D., as chief business officer.

Martin Oft, M.D., assumes role of Chief Scientific Officer
Greg Yedinak promoted to Chief Technical Officer

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Synthekine Inc., an engineered cytokine therapeutics company, today announced the appointment of Geoff Nosrati, Ph.D., as chief business officer. The company also announced additional changes in the executive leadership team, with Martin Oft, M.D., assuming the role of chief scientific officer and Greg Yedinak promoted to chief technical officer.

“Geoff is an accomplished biotechnology executive with extensive knowledge in corporate strategy and business development,” said Debanjan Ray, chief executive officer of Synthekine. “His experience in portfolio strategy and transactions will be an asset to Synthekine as we continue to advance our wholly owned pipeline and progress our partnering activities.”

Ray continued, “We’re also delighted to recognize Martin and Greg’s contributions to Synthekine with their new roles. Martin’s deep insights into cytokine biology and immunology were instrumental to shaping the development of STK-012, our first-in-class alpha/beta biased IL-2. Its unique mechanism expands the therapeutic index of IL-2, one of the most important immuno-oncology targets, providing improved efficacy while avoiding IL-2 related vascular toxicities. Greg’s broad expertise in the development and manufacturing of biologics and cell therapies has allowed us to advance both STK-012 and STK-009 + SYNCAR-001, our novel combination therapy of orthogonal IL-2 and CD19 CAR-T with potential to overcome limitations of current CD19 directed cell therapies in both hematological malignancies and autoimmune disease, into clinical development. Their contributions over the years have been invaluable to Synthekine’s rapid progress.”

Dr. Nosrati is an expert in corporate strategy and business development with more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry. He has worked across multiple modalities and therapeutic areas, with an emphasis on oncology, autoimmune and rare disease. Prior to joining Synthekine, Dr. Nosrati was chief business officer at Nutcracker Therapeutics. In his previous experience, he also served as chief business officer of ImmunoScape and held multiple senior executive roles at Aduro Biotech. In these positions, he worked closely with research, development, and commercial teams to strategically position the companies in the market and establish them as preferred partners for leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations. Early in his career, Dr. Nosrati advised pharmaceutical and biotechnology clients at McKinsey & Co., with a focus on corporate strategy, finance, due diligence, and mergers and acquisitions. Dr. Nosrati holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, Los Angeles and graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry from Duke University.

Dr. Oft joined Synthekine at its formation in 2019 and previously served as the chief development officer. He is an expert in immune therapies, with in-depth experience in preclinical, translational, and clinical research and development of cytokine therapeutics for cancer and inflammatory disease. Prior to Synthekine, Dr. Oft co-founded ARMO Biosciences, where he oversaw pipeline development including pegilodecakin (pegylated IL-10) from early-target discovery through phase 3 clinical studies. He 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, Dr. Oft 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. Dr. Oft 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.

Mr. Yedinak previously served as senior vice president of technical operations after joining the company in 2020. He has more than 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical, biologics, and medical device process development, manufacturing and operations. Prior to joining Synthekine, Greg was senior vice president of manufacturing and supply chain operations at PACT Pharma, where he was responsible for building the internal and CMO manufacturing operations for the PACT Pharma cell therapy programs. Prior to PACT Pharma, he held various executive and leadership positions at Versatis, Zosano, Nuvelo, Abgenix/Amgen and Genentech, where he was integral to the strategic production planning, process development, and production of numerous clinical and commercial products and devices. Greg earned a B.S. in biological sciences from the University of California-Irvine.

About Synthekine

Synthekine is harnessing the potential of cytokine therapeutics to develop selective immunotherapies designed to improve the treatment paradigm of cancer and inflammatory disease. Using insights on cytokine structure and function, the company engineers therapeutics designed to unlock the full efficacy potential of cytokines while avoiding their associated toxicities. Synthekine is applying principles of cytokine partial agonism and immunological specificity across multiple protein engineering platforms to create a broad and deep pipeline of product candidates. These novel immunotherapies include modified cytokines, cytokine-enhanced cell therapies and surrogate cytokine agonists. For more information, visit www.synthekine.com, and follow us on Twitter @synthekine and LinkedIn.