Leadership
Barry Labinger
Chief Executive Officer
Barry Labinger
Chief Executive Officer
Barry brings to Checkmate nearly three decades of pharmaceutical and biotech industry experience, most recently serving as President, CEO, and Director of Biothera Pharmaceuticals, a clinical stage cancer immunotherapy company focused on innate immune activation. Prior to Biothera, he was Executive Vice President and President, Biosciences Division, at Emergent BioSolutions Inc., where he led the development and commercialization of oncology, immunology and hematology products and product candidates. He previously held leadership roles at Human Genome Sciences, 3M Pharmaceuticals and Immunex. He received a BA in Economics from Northwestern University and MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Art Krieg, MD
Founder, Chief Scientific Officer
Art Krieg, MD
Founder, Chief Scientific Officer
Art has worked in the oligonucleotide field since the 1980s. After discovering immune stimulatory CpG DNA in 1994, he co-founded Coley Pharmaceutical Group in 1997 to develop the technology, discovering and taking 4 novel CpG oligonucleotides into clinical development. In 2008, Pfizer acquired Coley and Art became Chief Scientific Officer of Pfizer’s Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Unit until they exited the field in 2011. Art subsequently co-founded RaNA Therapeutics, serving as its CEO through 2013, and served as CSO at Sarepta Therapeutics until July 2014. He co-founded the first antisense journal, Nucleic Acid Therapeutics, and the Oligonucleotide Therapeutic Society, for which he recently served as President. Art received an MD from Washington University and trained in internal medicine at the University of Minnesota and in rheumatology at the NIH before joining the faculty at the University of Iowa, becoming professor of internal medicine. He has published more than 250 scientific papers and is an inventor on >50 issued US patents covering oligonucleotide technologies.
James Wooldridge, MD
Chief Medical Officer
James Wooldridge, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Jim has more than 20 years of drug development experience in academia, pharma, and biotech. He received an MD from Tulane University, and completed his post-graduate training in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology at the University of Iowa, after which he conducted clinical and translational cancer research on the faculties of the University of Missouri in Columbia and the University of Iowa. While at the University of Iowa, he performed some of the first pre-clinical cancer experiments in mice with CpG oligos and designed and conducted an early CpG oligo clinical trial. Prior to joining Checkmate, Dr. Wooldridge served as Chief Medical Officer at Aeglea BioTherapeutics, where he oversaw development programs in oncology and rare genetic diseases, including pegzilarginase, which recently received Breakthrough Designation for Arginase 1 Deficiency. He spent 11 years in cancer research at Eli Lilly and Company, where he led Oncology US Medical Affairs and more recently served as the Chief Scientific Officer for Immuno-oncology Clinical Development.
Kleem Chaudhary, PhD
Chief Business Officer
Kleem Chaudhary, PhD
Chief Business Officer
Kleem brings to Checkmate more than 16 years of experience within the biotech/pharma industry with broad experience across business development & licensing, strategy and drug discovery. He has held leadership roles of increasing responsibility across multiple organizations including most recently as Head of Business Development & Licensing at Biogen and previously as a transaction leader in Business Development at Takeda. He began his business development career at Novartis, where he was a team leader and led deals across multiple therapeutic areas. Prior to Novartis, he was a medicinal chemist at Gilead Sciences. Kleem holds a PhD in chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a BSc in chemistry from the University of Winnipeg.
Jon Lieber
Interim Chief Financial Officer
Jon Lieber
Interim Chief Financial Officer
Jon is a seasoned executive with 25 years of experience in financial and executive management at emerging life science companies and in investment banking. During his career, he has raised more than $325 million of equity and debt in public and private securities offerings, including a $110 million IPO at Altus Pharmaceuticals, and led strategic and business development transactions including the successful sale of Xcellerex to GE Healthcare. He currently serves as a Managing Director of Danforth Advisors and most recently served as CFO of Histogenics Corporation, a publicly-traded cell therapy company developing products for the orthopedics market. He additionally held the roles of CFO for Metamark Genetics, Inc. and CFO of Repligen Corporation. Previously, Jon was an investment banker for ten years, during which time he originated and executed on numerous corporate financings and merger and acquisition transactions at SG Cowen and Salomon Brothers Inc. He received a BS in Business Administration and Finance from Boston University and an MBA in Finance from New York University Stern School of Business.
Katherine Eade
General Counsel
Katherine Eade
General Counsel
Katherine is a seasoned legal and business executive with more than 19 years of experience advising public companies on significant corporate transactions, corporate governance and capital markets, including a dozen years in the life sciences industry. She serves as a member of the board of directors of Harvard Bioscience, where she is the chair of its governance committee and a member of the audit committee. Prior to joining Checkmate, Ms. Eade was Vice President, Strategic Commercial Affairs at Align Technology, and she previously served as the Director, M&A Law and Transactions for Corning Incorporated and Division Counsel for Corning’s Life Sciences and Pharmaceutical Technologies divisions. She began her legal career at Cleary Gottlieb, a leading international law firm, and she served as a law clerk for Judge Morton I. Greenberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She received a JD, cum laude, from Harvard Law School and a BA in government, summa cum laude, from Cornell University.