IDEAYA Biosciences

Yujiro S. Hata
President and Chief Executive Officer

Yujiro is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience building companies that have delivered innovative therapies to patients. In June 2015, he launched IDEAYA Biosciences as its first employee and Chief Executive Officer and led the company’s IPO in May 2019 (NASDAQ: IDYA) and formed the partnership with GlaxoSmithKline in June 2020. From 2015 to 2018, he served as an Executive-in-Residence at 5AM Ventures. From 2014 to August 2015, he served as Chief Operating Officer at Flexus Biosciences, which he led through its acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb in April 2015, and then served as Chief Operating Officer at FLX Bio (renamed RAPT Therapeutics, NASDAQ: RAPT), a spinout of Flexus Biosciences. From 2010 through the approvals of Kyprolis® and Stivarga® and its acquisition by Amgen in October 2013, he was Vice President, Corporate Development and Strategy at Onyx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ONXX), where he served as Head of Strategy and Strategic Asset Management, and Head of Transactions. From 2002 to 2010, Yujiro served as Vice President, Business Development, Senior Vice President, Business Development, and Chief Business Officer at Enanta Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ENTA), which discovered the protease inhibitors contained in Viekira Pak and Mavyret™, both of which received Breakthrough Therapy designation and approval by the FDA. He earlier served in roles at McKinsey, ImClone and Columbia Medical School.

Yujiro obtained his M.B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania, his B.A. in chemistry at Colorado College, and did undergraduate studies in chemistry and biology at Oxford University. He serves on the Board of Directors at Xencor (NASDAQ: XNCR) and Enanta Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ENTA), and as Board Member at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego.

Michael White, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer

Mike is a discovery biologist with over two decades of R&D leadership experience in industry and academia. He has deep expertise in cell regulation, tumor biology, target discovery, technology development and drug discovery.

Mike transitioned from academia to the pharmaceutical industry in 2016 as CSO for Tumor Biology at Pfizer. There he led a cross-disciplinary group to build an oncology small-molecule pipeline focused on first-in-class therapies that intercept oncogenic signaling networks, modulate tumor/host interactions and promote productive anti-tumor immune responses. These efforts culminated in numerous INDs over a span of five years. Prior, Mike was Professor of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, Associate Director of Basic Science for the Harold Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center, and inaugural Director of the UTSW Cancer Intervention and Prevention Discovery training program. His appointments include the Hortense and Morton Sanger Professorship in Oncology, the Sherry Wigley Crow Cancer Research Endowed Chair, and the Grant A. Dove Distinguished Chair for Research in Oncology. In 2015, Mike received the inaugural National Institute of Cancer’s Outstanding Investigator Award. He has authored over 150 publications with over 22,000 citations.

Mike completed his postdoctoral training in cancer biology and signal transduction at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories in New York. He received his Ph.D. in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of Iowa.

Paul A. Stone, J.D.
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Paul is a life science executive with over 20 years of legal, financial, and management experience. Paul was previously with 5AM Ventures for over nine years in various leadership capacities including as Partner, General Counsel, and Chief Operating Officer. Paul serves as a Board of Director of Scientist.Com and was a founding Director at Cidara (NASDAQ: CDTX), Homology (NASDAQ: FIXX), and IDEAYA (NASDAQ: IDYA), as well was a Board Observer at RareCyte and other companies. He also held early management and operating rolls at Cidara, Entrada, IDEAYA and Homology. Prior to joining 5AM, Paul was Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Ethos Pharmaceuticals, Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Chief Patent Counsel at Ilypsa (acquired by Amgen) and Vice President, Chief Patent Counsel at Symyx (IPO). He earlier served in roles at Boeing and Wisconsin Electric.

Paul earned a B.S. in Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, after which he served as a U.S. Naval Officer on USS NIMITZ. He received a J.D. from University of Wisconsin Law School and practiced intellectual property law as a Patent Attorney at Senniger Powers. Paul taught patent law, trade secrets law and licensing as an adjunct professor at University of Missouri and Santa Clara University. He also served on the Board of Directors of a regional non-profit, Save the Bay.

Paul A. Barsanti, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Head of Drug Discovery

Paul brings over 20 years of drug discovery experience. He joined IDEAYA Biosciences as Vice President, Head of Drug Discovery in July 2019. Prior to that he was an Executive-in-Residence at 5AM Ventures where he was involved with several early seeded new companies. From 2014 to 2018 Paul served as Head of Chemistry at Nurix, Inc., where he built and led the Chemical Sciences department and helped develop first in class small molecules against novel E3 ligases for therapeutic use within the fields of oncology and immuno-oncology. This includes the advancement of Nurix’s small molecule Cbl-b inhibitor. He played a pivotal role in initiating Nurix’s entry into their DEL and PROTAC technology platforms, enabling a protein degradation therapeutic pipeline which includes Nurix’s BTK degrader currently in pre-clinical development. From 2006 to 2014, Paul worked at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) where he served in various leadership roles including, Oncology Group Leader, Medicinal Chemistry where he and his teams focused on delivering best in class clinical candidates to treat cancer patients, including the RAF kinase inhibitor LHX254. Prior to Novartis, Paul worked in the fields of oncology and infectious diseases at Chiron Corporation (acquired by Novartis).

Paul is an author on over 50 publications and patents. Paul obtained both his Chemistry B.Sc. (Hons) and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Bath. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Professor Scott E. Denmark.

Mark Lackner, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Head of Biology and Translational Sciences

Mark has nineteen year’s experience in oncology drug development with broad experience ranging from target identification through biomarker development in registrational clinical trials. He is Vice President and head of Biomarkers and Synthetic Lethal Biology at IDEAYA. Prior to joining IDEAYA, Mark worked at Genentech for 14 years in positions of increasing responsibility in the Oncology Biomarker Development group, most recently as a Director and Principal Scientist. At Genentech his group was accountable for predictive and pharmacodynamic strategies for candidate therapeutics spanning cancer signaling through immuno-oncology, and was accountable for clinical biomarker strategies for over 20 development stage small molecule and antibody agents. His group developed clinical biomarker strategies for immune doublet combinations with the anti-PDL1 antibody Tecentriq, as well as phase III companion diagnostic strategies for the AKT inhibitor Ipatasertib and the MEK and BRAF inhibitors Cobimetinib and Vemurafenib. Mark also provided strategic leadership for the overall breast cancer biomarker strategy within the broader Roche organization. Prior to joining Genentech, Mark worked at Exelixis (NASDAQ: EXEL) from 1999 through 2004 in oncology target identification and validation, including the identification of synthetic lethal interactions with the tumor suppressor gene p53.

Mark received his PhD from Stanford University in 1997 for studies on genetic analysis of RAS/MAP kinase signaling. He completed postdoctoral studies at UC Berkeley in the laboratory of Joshua Kaplan. He has authored over 55 peer reviewed scientific manuscripts in journals including Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Cell and Clinical Cancer Research.

Jason S. Throne, J.D.
Senior Vice President, General Counsel

Jason has over 20 years of legal experience representing both public and private life sciences companies. He joined IDEAYA Biosciences as Vice President, General Counsel in October 2019. Prior to joining IDEAYA Biosciences, Jason served as Vice President, General Counsel of NeoTract, Inc., a urology medical device company, until its acquisition by Teleflex Incorporated. Prior to NeoTract, Jason held various roles, including Associate General Counsel, Corporate & Compliance Officer, at Thoratec Corporation (NASDAQ: THOR), a cardiology medical device company, which was acquired by St. Jude Medical. Previously, Jason was an associate at the law firm of Cooley Godward LLP, representing both private and public companies on corporate matters, and a senior audit accountant at the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche LLP.

Jason earned a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law and a B.S. in Business from the University of Colorado.

Andres Ruiz Briseno, C.P.A.
Vice President, Head of Business Operations and Investor Relations

Andres has over 10 years of finance and operations experience working with public and private life science companies. He joined IDEAYA Biosciences as Vice President, Head of Business Operations and Investor Relations in November 2021. Previously, Andres held roles at IDEAYA from August 2016 to July 2021, including most recently as Vice President, Finance. Prior to joining IDEAYA, Andres was at Pharmacyclics, Inc., (NASDAQ: PCYC) where he helped lead the organization’s finance and operations efforts in support of the successful launch of blockbuster cancer drug, IMBRUVICA® (ibrutinib) and played a key role in building the Company’s long-range planning and the integration activities into AbbVie, following Pharmacyclics’ $21 billion acquisition. Prior to that, Andres held roles at Theravance, Inc. (NASDAQ: THRX), and at PricewaterhouseCoopers’ audit and assurance practice where he focused on life science and venture capital clients.

Andres obtained his B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in Corporate Financial Management from San Jose State University and is a Certified Public Accountant, licensed in the state of California.

Matthew Maurer, M.D.
Vice President, Head of Medical Affairs and Clinical Oncology

Matt has over 15 years of combined translational, clinical, and pharmaceutical cancer research experience. He is Vice President, Head of Medical Affairs and Clinical Oncology at IDEAYA. A graduate of Mount Sinai medical school, Matt completed a joint research internal medicine residency and clinical fellowship in hematology and oncology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Matt then joined the faculty at Columbia as a physician scientist and clinical breast cancer expert with a focus on developmental therapeutics and earned a masters in biostatistics from the Mailman School of Public Health patient oriented research program. Matt left academia to join the Early Clinical and Translational Research group at Bristol Myers Squibb and served as the medical lead of multiple first in human programs. Most recently, Matt served as the clinical development lead in charge of the late development portfolio of nivolumab and ipilimumab in both renal cell carcinoma and prostate cancer.

Matt obtained his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and then completed his residency at Columbia University Medical Center.

Mick O’Quigley
Vice President, Development Operations

Mick has over 20 years of clinical research experience across all phases of oncology drug development. As Vice President, Development Operations, Mick is currently responsible for the oversight of the execution of IDEAYA’s clinical pipeline. Prior to joining IDEAYA, Mick served as a Program Group Director in clinical operations at Genentech’s Research and Early Development group from January 2008 to June 2018 years where he was responsible for multiple immuno-oncology programs. Mick led the initiation and operational implementation of a global network of leading immuno-oncology institutions to accelerate clinical research across the Roche-Genentech pipeline. Prior to joining Genentech, Mick worked at Amgen from 1996 to 2008 where he held roles of increasing clinical development responsibilities for multiple products, including Aranesp®, Kepivance® and Vectibix®. Mick also held earlier roles at Rhône-Poulenc Rorer and PAREXEL.

Mick earned his M.B.A. from Pepperdine University and his B.A. from Trinity College Dublin.

Julie Patel
Vice President, Human Resources

Julie has extensive experience as a human resources professional, with 25 years of life sciences experience at world-class biopharmaceutical companies. She joined IDEAYA in April, 2020 as Vice President, Human Resources, and has broad functional responsibility, including talent acquisition, leadership development and shaping the employee experience, people capabilities and culture. Prior to joining IDEAYA, Julie previously served at Jazz Pharmaceuticals as a Senior Director, HR Business Partner for US Commercial Sales and Marketing, Global Legal and Compliance, and earlier as a Director of Learning and Development. Prior to Jazz, Julie was Senior Director, Strategic HR, Global Development at Elan Pharmaceuticals. Julie also worked earlier in her career at Johnson & Johnson companies ALZA and Scios in human resource business partner roles for research and development, as well as led the recruiting, employee relations, and talent management functions.

Julie earned her B.A. in Information and Communications Studies at California State University, Chico, holds certifications in numerous training and development programs, and attended executive coaching through Fielding Graduate University. She also currently serves as a mentor with the Healthcare Business Women’s Association in San Francisco.