Leadership

Nancy Whiting, Pharm.D., is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Recludix Pharma and has an established track record in all phases of drug development. Nancy is a 15-year veteran of Seagen, formerly Seattle Genetics. Most recently, she was the Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy, where she had the broad remit of corporate strategy and planning, strategic alliances and partnerships, investor relations, corporate communications and information technologies. She previously served as Executive Vice President of Late Stage Development, Senior Vice President of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs, and Head of Experimental Medicine. During her tenure at Seagen, Nancy played a central role in the development and regulatory approval of ADCETRIS for lymphoma, PADCEV for bladder cancer, TUKYSA for breast cancer, TIVDAK for cervical cancer, and several other pipeline compounds. Prior to transitioning to the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Whiting practiced as a Clinical Oncology Pharmacist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Dr. Whiting completed her undergraduate training at the University of British Columbia and received her Pharm.D. from the University of Washington. She also completed a residency in clinical pharmacy practice at Vancouver General Hospital. Dr. Whiting is a member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Hematology, and the European Society of Medical Oncology. She serves on the Board of Directors of Caribou BioSciences and also Boundless BioSciences.

Ajay Nirula, M.D., Ph.D., is the Executive Vice President and Head of Research and Development at Recludix Pharma.  Prior to joining Recludix, Ajay has served in various senior roles at pharmaceutical companies over the last two decades.  Most recently, Ajay was Senior Vice President and Immunology Therapeutic Head for Eli Lilly and Company. He has also served as the site head for Lilly Biotechnology Center in San Diego which was the company’s second largest global research site. Dr. Nirula joined Lilly in 2015 and where he was responsible for discovery research and early and mid-phase clinical development in immunology.  Over that time, he helped establish Immunology as a new therapeutic area for the company with four medicines approved globally and a robust early pipeline with over ten product candidates advanced to the clinic.  He also served as the medical leader for Lilly’s work during the COVID pandemic that led to emergency authorization for multiple therapeutic neutralizing antibodies. Prior to joining Lilly, Dr. Nirula held leadership positions at Amgen and Biogen Idec and was involved in several research programs and regulatory filings spanning diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and vasculitis. He begun his career at Merck and Co leading early clinical development of molecules in cardiovascular disease and inflammation.

Dr. Nirula earned his undergraduate degree in molecular biology from UC Berkeley, his M.D. from UCLA School of Medicine, and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. He subsequently completed his fellowship and joined the faculty in the Division of Rheumatology at UCSF Medical Center. He has published extensively in the scientific literature in journals such as New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and Nature Immunology.

Matthew Caldemeyer, M.B.A., is the Chief Business Officer of Recludix Pharma. He led the execution of the company’s strategic collaboration with Sanofi to advance a novel oral STAT6 inhibitor.  Prior to Recludix, he was the Vice President of Business Development at Everest Medicines where he led business development transactions and managed a key alliance with Gilead. He previously served as Head of Business Development at Ambrx and as Director of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Array BioPharma. From 2011 to 2015, Mr. Caldemeyer held progressive roles in strategy and corporate development at Amgen, based both in the United States and Switzerland. From 2004 to 2011, Mr. Caldemeyer was at Eli Lilly and Company where he held positions in business development, finance and manufacturing. Mr. Caldemeyer obtained a B.S. from Michigan State University and an M.B.A. in finance from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University.

Catherine Bovenizer, C.P.A., is the Senior Vice President of Finance and Business Operations at Recludix Pharma. From the company’s inception through June 2020, she served as Recludix’s consulting Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining Recludix, Ms. Bovenizer served as the Chief Financial Officer of Renova Therapeutics, a privately-held company focused on the development of gene and peptide therapies for the treatment of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. She served as Vice President of Finance and Chief Accounting Officer of Apricus Biosciences, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company that merged with Seelos Therapeutics in January 2019. Ms. Bovenizer previously served as Executive Director of Finance and Corporate Controller for Ambit Biosciences, where she helped lead the company’s internal processes through its initial public offering and sale to Daiichi Sankyo in 2014. Earlier in her career, Ms. Bovenizer practiced as a public accountant with Coopers & Lybrand. Ms. Bovenizer is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of California. Ms. Bovenizer graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Economics, Accounting and Literature from Claremont McKenna College, where she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

Brian Hodous, Ph.D., is a co-founder of Recludix Pharma and serves as the Senior Vice President of Chemistry. Dr. Hodous has nearly 20 years of experience in drug discovery and preclinical development. He spent his career at several large and start-up biotechnology companies, where he contributed to the discovery of multiple clinical molecules and one approved drug, set company strategy and implemented initiatives to foster team/culture building. Dr. Hodous was most recently the Head of Chemistry at Accent Therapeutics responsible for drug discovery strategy and chemical matter identification/optimization in the emerging area of RNA-modifying protein biology. From 2011 to 2017, Dr. Hodous was at Blueprint Medicines where he co-led the advancement of their proprietary kinase inhibitor library strategy and design efforts. During his tenure at Blueprint, he was a co-inventor and co-program lead for: AYVAKIT (avapritinib), a potent, selective KIT/PDGFR inhibitor approved for the treatment of patients with PDGFRa mutant GIST and patients with advanced systemic mastocytosis; Fisogatinib, a potent, selective, covalent inhibitor of FGFR4 in clinical trials for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma; and IPN60130 (out-licensed to Ipsen Biopharmaceuticals, formerly BLU-782), a potent, selective inhibitor of ALK2 kinase that is currently in Phase 2 clinical trials for the treatment of patients with the rare genetic disease, fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva.  While at EMD Serono, he co-invented and co-led the development of evobrutinib, a highly potent, selective, covalent BTK inhibitor that is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials for multiple sclerosis. From 2002-2008, Dr. Hodous was at Amgen where he co-invented AMG-900, a pan-Aurora kinase inhibitor that went into Phase 1 clinical trials for oncology indications. Dr. Hodous holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from MIT.

Paul Smith, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President of Biology at Recludix Pharma. Dr. Smith has more than 15 years of drug discovery experience primarily focused on the treatment of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Dr. Smith was most recently at Connect Biopharma as the Vice President of Discovery Biology responsible for the prioritization, planning and execution of their preclinical discovery pipeline. Previously, he was the Senior Director of Inflammation and Autoimmunity at Incyte Corporation where he established the discovery research team and was instrumental in the development strategy for certain therapeutics, including FDA-approved Opzelura™ (ruxolitinib cream) for atopic dermatitis and Jakafi™ (oral ruxolitinib) for acute and chronic graft versus host disease. At Novartis, Dr. Smith was the global research lead for Gilenya™ (fingolimod), the first approved sphingosine 1-phosphate (S1P) receptor modulator, and Kesimpta™ (ofatumumab), a differentiated anti-CD20 therapy for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. At Merck Serono, he was the Director of Pharmacology responsible for preclinical inflammation and biomarker discovery. Earlier in his career, Dr. Smith was a Senior Scientist at UCB focused on novel biologics-based treatment strategies for inflammatory diseases. Dr. Smith is an inventor on fifteen issued or pending patents. He received his Ph.D. in Immunology and Neuroscience at Imperial College London, UK and a B.Sc. in Pharmacology from the University of Bath, UK.