Chief Human
Resources Officer
Chief Technical
Operations Officer
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Jeffrey Jones has over 15 years of clinical development experience in academia and industry, with skills ranging from clinical trials, drug development, medical education, and healthcare management. Previously, Dr. Jones served as Vice President, Global Drug Development, Lymphoma and Myeloid Diseases at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he led the development and lifecycle management strategy for Reblozyl®. Earlier, Dr. Jones was Clinical Strategy Lead for Lymphoma and Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, Global Clinical Research and Development at Celgene, where he shaped clinical and business development strategy across a diverse portfolio of small and large molecules in early- through late-stage development.
Before joining the industry in 2017, Dr. Jones was Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Hematology at The Ohio State University. While at Ohio State, Dr. Jones led the Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia clinical research program and represented the Division of Hematology as Clinical Research Leader in the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Jones holds an M.B.A. from The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business, an M.P.H. from the University of Texas School of Public Health and an M.D. from the University of Michigan Medical School, completing his residency in internal medicine at McGill University.
Chief Scientific Officer
Jennifer Michaelson is a biotech executive with 20+ years of industry experience in oncology, immunology, and immune-oncology drug development. Prior to joining Cullinan, Jennifer participated in the launch of Jounce Therapeutics, where she built and led multiple departments, including Tumor Immunology, Pharmacology, and Preclinical Development, and went on to serve as the Executive Program Leader for the lead program, JTX-2011. Jennifer’s prior roles in industry include a 10-year tenure at Biogen, where she served as project leader for several monoclonal antibody and bispecific antibody programs in both the oncology and immunology therapeutic areas. Jennifer has also served as a consultant at Third Rock Ventures for multiple stealth stage immune-oncology companies.
Jennifer earned her B.A. in Biology from Princeton University and Ph.D. from the Department of Cell Biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Philip Leder’s laboratory in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School.
Chief Business Officer
Corinne is highly accomplished in pharmaceutical research and development, oncology and international business development. Prior to joining Cullinan Oncology, Corinne served as Global Head, Business Development and Licensing for Novartis Pharma. In this role, Corinne oversaw the execution and management of over 20 major transactions across multiple therapeutic areas including in-licensing, option and equity deals, spin-outs, and divestments. Corinne started her career as a researcher at AstraZeneca and Imutran, a UK-based biotech company, where she was Research Director. Novartis acquired Imutran in 1996 and Corinne was promoted to CEO of Imutran. Since 2001, Corinne continued to hold increasingly senior leadership positions within Novartis. She was the European Head of the Transplant and Immunology Business, the Global Head Search and Evaluation for Business Development and prior to her last role the Global Head of Pricing and Market Access where she was responsible for the price and access strategies for the entire Novartis portfolio.
Corinne received a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Manchester (UK) and conducted her postgraduate research at University College and Middlesex School of Medicine (Ph.D.) and the Charing Cross Sunley Research Centre in London.
Chief Financial Officer
Senior Vice President, Communications
Rose is an expert communications professional in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Prior to joining Cullinan Oncology, she held roles of increasing responsibility in Corporate Affairs at Bristol Myers Squibb, with leadership positions in Science and Commercial Communications, Global Hematology, and Corporate Communications. Rose joined Bristol Myers Squibb after leading communications for the U.S. site for Otsuka. Previously, Rose held business communications roles at Sanofi. Rose earned her Master’s degree in Finance from La Salle University in Philadelphia.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Nadim has more than twenty-five years of leadership experience in oncology across a range of development and commercialization roles, including recently at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), where he served as President, Hematology and at Celgene Corporation (Celgene) where he served as President, Global Hematology & Oncology. As President, Hematology at BMS, Nadim oversaw multiple product launches and served as a member of the company’s Leadership Team. Prior to BMS, Nadim served in leadership roles at Celgene across both development and commercialization functions. Nadim has expertise in various treatment modalities, including small molecules, biologics, and cell therapy in hematology and solid tumors. Nadim holds a Master of Science degree from Loughborough University, UK and a Bachelor of Science degree from University College London, UK.
Nadim currently serves on the Board of Directors for Family Promise, a national non-profit organization helping families impacted by homelessness.
Dr. Bahija Jallal is Chief Executive Officer and Director of the Board of Immunocore, a commercial-stage biotechnology company pioneering the development of a novel class of T cell receptor (TCR) bispecific immunotherapies designed to treat a broad range of diseases, including cancer, infectious diseases and autoimmune conditions.
Prior to taking the helm at Immunocore in January 2019, Bahija was President of MedImmune, the global biologics research and development unit of AstraZeneca. She was also Executive Vice President of AstraZeneca and was a member of its senior executive team reporting to the CEO. Dr. Jallal joined MedImmune in March 2006. Under her leadership, MedImmune/AstraZeneca developed and launched ten new biologic medicines in three therapeutic areas.
Bahija has authored more than 70 peer-reviewed publications and has more than 15 patents. She serves on the Board of Elevance Health and is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Johns Hopkins University and the Board of Directors of the University of Maryland Health Sciences Research Park Corporation. Bahija is also a member of the Women in Cancer Research Council of the American Association of Cancer Research; and the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. She is a past President of the Association of Women in Science and was named the 2017 Woman of the Year by the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.
Bahija received a master’s degree in biology from the Universite de Paris VII in France and her doctorate in physiology from the University of Pierre & Marie Curie in Paris. She conducted her postdoctoral research at the Max-Planck Institute of Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany.
Dr. Patricia LoRusso has been a practicing academic medical oncologist performing clinical/translational research in early phase clinical trials for 30 years, spending the first 25 years at Wayne State University/Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit, MI and transitioning to Yale University/Yale Cancer Center in 2014. Both institutions have NCI comprehensive designation status. She has had continuous NIH/NCI peer review funding for 28 years, having held a U-grant for early phase clinical trials through the NCI Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) for 26 years. She has also collaborated on numerous other grants and have been an investigator in P01 and P30 funding mechanisms. Understanding the need for team science, she has participated in P50 mechanisms and has been awarded team science grants through such organizations as Stand Up to Cancer (Co-Leader: Melanoma Dream Team), the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Komen Foundation (Co-leader, KG111063:Targeting Stem Cells in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) in Different Racial Populations).
Dr. LoRusso has also been involved in many service disciplines at the NCI. She has reviewed grants for many study sections and has either been an ad hoc (e.g. CCSG, NeXT study sections) or permanent study section member (e.g. Program Project Subcommittee D and Clinical Oncology study sections). She has served on the Investigational Drug Steering Committee (IDSC) since inception (2005-present) and served as its chair from 2011-2013. She was a member of the steering committee that convened after the Blue- Ribbon Panel to execute on their recommendations. She served a 4-year term (2015-2019) on the Board of Scientific Council (BSC), reviewing the intramural programs for quality, content, productivity and funding.
In addition to serving in NCI positions, Dr. LoRusso has served in leadership positions of several other organizations. She has served on the Board of Directors and numerous scientific and education committees of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the education and scientific committees of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and the steering committee for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Accelerating Anticancer Agent Development and Validation Workshop, as examples. Internationally, she has taught several clinical trials educational workshops, educating many physicians and scientists across the globe. She understands how critically important it is to train the next generation of early career investigators to be knowledgeable and proficient in clinical and translational research by providing them leadership opportunities and mentoring. She has worked closely with Cancer Research United Kingdom (CRUK), a UK Welcome Trust which is the second largest funding agency for cancer research. She is currently serving a 3-year term as the chair of their New Agents Committee (NAC), reviewing international proposals relative to drug development of novel agents.
Working closely over the past 3 decades with patients suffering from advanced malignancies, Dr. LoRusso has become an advocate, not only for cancer researchers and clinicians, but more importantly for the patients and their caregivers. Having experienced at a young age the death of her own parents from cancer, she understands the urgent need for new cancer discoveries and the potential for longevity and quality of life.
Dr. Tolcher is the CEO and Founder of NEXT OncologyTM, a Phase I group that seeks to transform early clinical trials. NEXT Oncology’s mission is to accelerate the next breakthrough medicines for cancer and to be the most successful and respected Phase I program in oncology research. The NEXT Oncology sites include San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, Fairfax, Virginia, Barcelona, and Madrid, Spain. Dr. Tolcher served as President and Co-Founder of START LLC from 2009- 2018, one of the world’s largest Clinical Phase I and early drug development operations in cancer medicine, with 5 locations across the US, Spain and China. Dr. Tolcher is a medical oncologist with over 25 years of experience in early drug development and clinical trials. He has been involved in many of the initial Phase I studies of new agents that subsequently were FDA approved for the treatment of cancer, including pembrolizumab (Keytruda), copanlisib (Aliqopa), trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla), regorafenib (Stivarga), liposomal vincristine (Marqibo), cabazitaxel (Jevtana), carfilzomib (Kyprolis), gefitinib (Iressa), erlotinib (Tarceva), and eribulin (Halaven). He is currently the principal investigator on 40 Phase I clinical studies and is a reviewer for the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Clinical Cancer Research, and Annals of Oncology. He has chaired the Developmental Therapeutics Review Committee for the American Association of Clinical Oncology Annual Scientific Program. Dr. Tolcher has over 100 peer-reviewed publications in scientific journals, including Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), Journal of Clinical Oncology, and Clinical Cancer Research and is the author of nine book chapters.