Neethan Lobo

Neethan Lobo

Onena Medicines

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Neethan is a drug discovery veteran with over 14 years of experience in large pharma/biotech and startup companies. After working for GlaxoSmithKline in the microbiology MMPP CEDD, Neethan completed his doctoral training at the University of Michigan focusing on how cancer cells abuse stem cell mechanisms to resist therapies. During his post-doctoral work at Stanford University, Neethan co-invented a state-of-the-art single cell transcriptional platform combined with advanced cancer organoid modeling to uncover new therapeutic targets and patient selection biomarkers. This work served as the basis of the spin-out company Quanticel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where Neethan spearheaded the biological modeling and platform development. After Quanticel’s successful acquisition by Celgene Corporation in 2015, Neethan worked at Celgene Quanticel Research in the drug discovery of epigenetic targets. Neethan then joined DiscoverX to lead their oncology efforts for their BioMAP division, a major contributing factor to DiscoverX’s successful acquisition by Eurofins in 2016, the world’s largest drug services provider. Neethan then joined Unity Biotechnology, where he worked as a program, alliance and portfolio manager for early phase R&D projects originating from the Frontier sciences group, helping the company advance new targets to address aging-related diseases. Together with his co-founder, Maider Zabala Ugalde, Neethan co-founded Onena Medicines SL in 2018 to build antibody therapeutics that modulate the activities of a novel set of cellular reprogramming factors called Dual SMAD Inhibiting Proteins, to treat advanced oncology indications. Under his guidance as CEO, Onena Medicines moved their HQ to Basel, Switzerland and has raised over 3 million CHF in seed round funding including investments from Baselaunch and Avanteca Partners.