California Biotech Insights

Dr. Arthur Suckow was the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer & Board Member at DTx Pharma up until their acquisition by Novartis in 2023. He has also previously worked for Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, and Regulus Therapeutics. He currently serves as an advisor for Palm Therapeutics, Actio Biosciences, Sinopia Therapeutics and Transcera. Dr. Suckow’s extensive experience in fatty acid pharmacology includes advancing small molecules targeting fatty acids and fatty-acid conjugated peptides into early clinical development. Dr. Suckow has received numerous awards including a Beckman Fellowship, NSF graduate research fellowship, a BIOCOM catalyst award, a CMTRF trailblazer award and many others. Dr. Suckow received his BS from the University of Delaware and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Diego.

Nicole White, PhD, serves as the Chief Manufacturing Officer of Assembly Bio. Nicole joined Assembly in 2020 and previously served as the Company’s Senior Vice President, Pharmaceutical Development and Manufacturing. Prior to joining Assembly, she headed up Process Chemistry at Gossamer Bio and led Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Controls (CMC) for multiple early and late-stage programs in development. Prior to that she held progressive leadership roles at Gilead Sciences to advance multiple programs from Phase 1 through commercial launch and helped guide the drug substance manufacturing and global outsourcing strategy. While at Gilead she contributed to the development and commercial launch of multiple antiviral programs including Harvoni®, Vemlidy® and Vosevi®. Nicole earned a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of California, San Diego.

Dr. Tod Smeal has served as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Cardiff Oncology since January 2022. Previously he was CSO at Hexagon Bio (2020-2021), CSO of Cancer Biology at Eli Lilly and Company (2015-2020), Director at the Oncology Research Unit of Pfizer (2003-2015), and Senior Group Leader at the Sugen site of Pharmacia and Upjohn and Sugen (1998-2003). When Pfizer closed the Sugen site in 2003, Dr. Smeal continued his oncology research efforts on targeted therapies and their resistance mechanisms with Pfizer at their San Diego oncology research site. Subsequently in 2015, Dr. Smeal joined Eli Lilly where he led their oncology research efforts at Lilly Research Labs in Indianapolis. During his over 20 years in industry working on targeted therapies, Dr. Smeal has played key leadership roles in delivering about 20 FHD/NMEs and several FDA approved drugs (e.g., Lorbrena, Xalkori, Vizimpro and Nirogacestat). Dr. Smeal’s work in developing cancer therapies has been focused on intracellular signaling, kinases, drug pharmacology, and targeted therapies and their resistance mechanisms. He has over 45 publications which include high-impact publications in Cell, Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, JCO, Cancer Cell and Cancer Discovery.