California Biotech Insights

Frank Watanabe has been the President of Arcutis Biotherapeutics since 2016, and Chief Executive Officer since 2017. Prior to joining Arcutis, he was Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Kanan Therapeutics, a cardiovascular drug development company, and before that, was vice president of strategy and corporate development at Kythera Biopharmaceuticals. Watanabe was an executive at Amgen, Inc. from 2005 to 2013, where he was involved in the development of Repatha® for hyperlipidemia and Aimovig® for migraine, and worked on the US marketing of Enbrel® in both dermatology and rheumatology. Previously, he was an executive with Eli Lilly and Company, and an official in the US government. He was also a commissioned officer in the US Navy Reserves for 25 years. He formerly served on the board of Amunix Pharmaceuticals. He earned his MA in national security studies, and his BA in international relations, both at Georgetown University.

Krishna Allamneni is the Chief Development Officer at Concarlo Therapeutics and a seasoned biopharma R&D leader who also volunteers as a strategic advisor to startups through initiatives such as California Life Sciences FAST program. With expertise in advancing therapeutic candidates across multiple modalities, Dr. Allamneni has successfully led nonclinical development modules for 25+ IND/IMPD submissions and secured 7 drug approvals in the US and a handful of global marketing licenses. A forward-thinking leader in early pharmaceutical development strategy, Dr. Allamneni is also a highly regarded operational manager, driving tactical planning and expedient execution for critical R&D functions. Her global regulatory experience includes impactful collaborations with health authorities across North America, Europe, and Australia. Prior to Concarlo, she held leadership roles at companies such as Turning Point Therapeutics, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Celera Genomics, Genentech/Roche and others.

We sat down to talk with Rajesh Krishnan, Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Technical Officer of Oncternal Therapeutics and a prominent leader in the CMC cell therapy space, to discuss how different modalities of therapeutics affect the CMC landscape:

Jian Zuo is Co-founder and CEO of Ting Therapeutics, a biotech startup developing therapeutics to prevent and treat hearing loss. Previously, Jian Zuo was Professor and Chair of Biomedical Sciences at Creighton University’s School of Medicine. He received his Bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China (1985); and a PhD in Physiology from the University of California at San Francisco (1993). He joined the faculty at the Department of Developmental Neurobiology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in 1998. His primary research interests included mouse genetics and mouse models that illustrate mechanisms of hair cell regeneration to restore hearing, and screening compound derivatives to preserve or restore hearing in preclinical models. He has been a member of the ARO since 1998 and has received the Bellucci Prize in Hearing Research in 2004.