Vice President, Translational Biology

Key Responsibilities

• Define and execute the end-to-end translational strategy across the TIE/SWITCH portfolio, integrating preclinical pharmacology, PK/PD, and biomarker plans into each program's target product profile.
• Translate the platform's tumor-conditional mechanism (gate engagement, TAA anchoring, and receptor clustering geometry) into testable pharmacology and clinical hypotheses.
• Drive forward and reverse translation, and establish clear go/no-go decision frameworks; own the pharmacology and translational sections of IND/CTA packages.
• Biomarker & patient selection
• Build the biomarker strategy from target-pathway engagement, receptor agonism readouts, and safety including patient stratification.
• Define mechanism-based endpoints and biomarker-driven enrollment logic, including indication and tumor-context selection.
• Preclinical pharmacology & models
• Direct in vivo and ex vivo pharmacology, including syngeneic and humanized models suited to conditional-agonist biologics.
• Design the translational safety strategy specific to agonist therapeutics (on-target/off-tumor risk, ADA-mediated crosslinking liabilities, and the therapeutic window created by TME gating).
• Oversee species cross-reactivity strategy, MABEL/dose projection, and translational PK/PD to inform FIH dose and confidence in mechanism.

Qualifications

• PhD, MD/PhD, PharmD/PhD, or equivalent in immunology, cancer biology, pharmacology, or a related discipline.
• 12+ years of biopharma/biotech experience with a strong track record in translational science and immuno-oncology.
• Depth in cancer immunology and, ideally, direct experience with immune agonists and the challenges of translating agonist therapeutics.
• Demonstrated success advancing biologics from discovery through IND and into early clinical development, including direct authorship of pharmacology/translational IND/CTA sections.
• Proven biomarker strategy experience (PD, predictive, safety) and patient-stratification design.
• Comfort operating with minimal infrastructure, building through external partners and consultants, setting up functions rather than running established ones.
• Excellent communicator able to translate complex science into clear decisions for the CEO, board, partners, and investors.

PREFERRED

• Experience at seed/early-stage companies;
• Conditional or masked/prodrug biologics;
• Bispecific or multispecific formats;
• BD/diligence-facing scientific communication.

We Offer

Competitive compensation including equity.