Boundless Bio is bolstering its ranks as it gears up to enter human testing, luring Amy Berkley, Ph.D., from Ionis Pharmaceuticals to help drive its anti-cancer therapies into the clinic.
Berkley spent three years at Ionis, working as executive director, alliance management. The role gave Berkley strategic oversight of Ionis’ alliances and a role in everything from the achievement of revenue targets from strategic relationships to the identification of novel drug targets. Berkley landed the Ionis role after serving as senior director, alliance management at Halozyme Therapeutics in a nine-year stint.
Across the two roles, Berkley has partnering experience involving some of the biggest companies in the industry including AstraZeneca, Biogen, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Pfizer and Roche. Berkley will now bring that experience to Boundless Bio as vice president, program team leadership and strategic alliances.
The San Diego-based biotech launched in 2019 with a $46 million series A round that was co-led by Arch Venture Partners and City Hill Ventures. Boundless Bio followed up last year with a $105 million series B raise that set it on a path to clinical development of cancer therapies against extrachromosomal DNA. The appointment of Berkley is intended to help Boundless Bio along that path.
“Amy brings significant experience in program team leadership and alliance management and will play a critical role in driving our lead ecDNA-directed therapeutic programs, or ecDTx, through first in human studies as well as advancing earlier stage programs that we innovate,” Boundless Bio CEO Zachary Hornby said in a statement.
Berkley is the latest in a series of new appointments by Boundless Bio. Over the past year, the biotech has disclosed new hires including Shailaja Kasibhatla, Ph.D., as VP, discovery and translational development and Neil Abdollahian as chief business officer.