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Biotech Insights

Cyril De Colle is the Co-founder & Chief Scientific Officer at Neurogastrx, a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing products for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders. Cyril has more than 20 years of drug development experience, having led multiple programs from IND submission to late-stage clinical development. Before Neurogastrx, Cyril led the division at Kinemed responsible for advising global and venture-backed pharmaceutical companies on neuroscience drug development programs. Prior to Kinemed, he led clinical development programs targeting neurological disorders at Jazz Pharmaceuticals and served as a senior research scientist at Amgen and Roche Pharmaceuticals. These experiences led him to explore the role of the enteric nervous system in GI conditions, such as gastroparesis, the focus of Neurogastrx’s NG-101 development program. Cyril has a M.S. in Pharmacology and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Montpellier in France.

Gary Li has over 20 years of multi-modality drug discovery, translational, and early development experience at both the strategic and operational levels. He is currently the Chief Strategy Officer for AdvanCell, fractional CSO for TippingPoint Biosciences, and advisor for multiple venture capital firms. Previously Gary was a member of RayzeBio’s and SVP, leading Discovery Biology, Translational Medicine, and Portfolio Strategy. He spearheaded the effort to establish a rich portfolio from novel targets to clinical assets. In addition, he played a key role in company building, fundraising, licensing, and scientific communication. Before joining RayzeBio, Dr. Li was SVP, Translational Medicine at BridgeBio, VP of Oncology Research at Ignyta, and held various scientific positions with increasing responsibilities at Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson, contributing to target ID/validation, drug discovery and multiple drug approvals. Gary is an inventor on multiple patents, has published 55 peer-reviewed articles, and delivered over 110 invited talks and meeting presentations.

John Langowski, PhD, is a seasoned drug discovery and cell therapy leader with more than two decades of experience advancing cell therapies, small molecules, and biologics from early discovery through IND-enabling studies and into the clinic. He currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer at Micoy Therapeutics, advising a novel autoimmune-focused startup on scientific strategy and preclinical proof-of-concept work. Prior to that, John spent seven years at Kite Pharma, where he progressed through multiple leadership roles—ultimately serving as Vice President of Cell Therapy Research and Site Head for both the Emeryville and Foster City research sites. Earlier in his career, John held roles of increasing responsibility at Nektar Therapeutics, where he led preclinical biology efforts for cytokine-based immunotherapies, and at Novartis, where he served as pharmacology lead for multiple oncology programs and contributed to IND submissions and translational strategy. John began his scientific career as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the DNAX Research Institute (currently Merck Research Laboratories), conducting foundational work on IL-23 biology that led to a highly cited publication and advanced understanding of cytokine-driven tumorigenesis. He holds a PhD in Immunology from the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Houston Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and a BS in Molecular Biology from The University of Texas at Austin.