A founding executive of Dracen, Dr. Ragab was most recently the Vice President, Search and Evaluation, Oncology at Bristol-Myers Squibb where he was involved in many major immuno-oncology deals. Prior to that, he was Global Partnering Head, Oncology at Hoffman-La Roche (member of the Roche Group) and prior to that global commercial leader for oncology at Pfizer. He also held various positions at Ortho Biotech and Schering-Plough (now Merck & Co.). He holds a Master Degree in Radiation Oncology from Cairo University School of Medicine and a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery degree from Cairo University School of Medicine.

Mr. Bilski has more than 20 years of experience in accounting, finance, strategic planning, and executive management for public and private companies. Mr. Bilski was the Chief Financial Officer of Tragara Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 2007-2018. Prior to Tragara, Mr. Bilski was the Director of Finance at Del Mar Database (DMD), a software and services provider for mortgage lenders. Mr. Bilski played a key role in leading DMD through a turnaround and rapid expansion and subsequent acquisition by Fiserv, Inc. Prior to DMD, Mr. Bilski spent five years at Arthur Andersen LLP in Washington, D.C., where he managed financial statement audits and due diligence engagements for various public and private companies. Mr. Bilski also spent two years with a consulting firm, where he worked exclusively with early-stage technology firms. Mr. Bilski graduated from The College of William and Mary with a BBA degree in Accounting.

Dr. Wild joined Dracen Pharmaceuticals in 2017 as one of the founding executives and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO). He is responsible for all discovery, preclinical development and translational research efforts of Dracen’s therapeutic pipeline and leads scientific strategy. Dr. Wild is a seasoned R&D executive with 20+ years of broad experience in drug discovery and development, spanning both small molecules and biologics. Throughout his career, Dr. Wild has contributed to the advancement of numerous clinical development candidates, including four FDA-approved oncology therapeutics (sunitinib, cetuximab, dasatinib and erlotinib). Before Dracen Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Wild was an independent consultant to biotech, pharma and venture capital companies. Prior to that, he served in various leadership roles including Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Research at Ignyta, Inc. (now member of the Roche Group), Chief Scientific Officer Oncology Research at Eli Lilly & Company, Senior Director at OSI Pharmaceuticals (now a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas Pharma), Senior Research Investigator at Bristol-Myers Squibb and Scientist at SUGEN, Inc. (acquired by Pfizer). Dr. Wild is a native of Germany and received his BS in Biochemistry and PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Mr. Estok brings 30+ years of experience in development and commercialization of pharmaceuticals to Dracen.  Previously, he was the founding President/CEO of Tragara Pharmaceuticals, founding President/CEO of Cabrellis Pharmaceuticals where he led the organization’s development of amrubicin prior to its acquisition by Pharmion, and served as Chief Commercial Officer of Conforma Therapeutics whose HSP90 franchise was acquired by Biogen-Idec. A 19-year veteran of Schering-Plough, Mr. Estok held a number of positions with progressing responsibility in R&D (biochemistry and oncology operations management), in both US and global marketing, European operations, sales and commercial development. His most recent position was Vice President, US Marketing and Commercial Development, Oncology. Mr. Estok has led multidisciplinary R&D, business development, and commercial teams and is a recognized leader in the commercialization of oncology therapeutics and the formation/growth of new divisions and companies. Mr. Estok graduated from Virginia Tech with a BS degree in Biochemistry and was awarded an MBA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. He is currently a Board Director at Adastra Pharmaceuticals.

Barbara Slusher is Professor of Neurology (primary), Psychiatry, Neuroscience, Medicine and Oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the Director of the Johns Hopkins Drug Discovery program (https://drugdiscovery.jhu.edu/). Before joining Johns Hopkins, she spent 18 years in the pharmaceutical industry, including several years at the level of Senior Vice President of Research and Translational Development. She has extensive experience in drug discovery through early clinical development and was involved in the successful development, launch and/or post marketing support of several branded medicines including Seroqul™, Aloxi™, Dacogen™, Lucedra™.

At Johns Hopkins, Dr. Slusher leads the largest integrated drug discovery program on campus with a veteran team of medicinal chemists, assay developers, pharmacologists, toxicologists, and pharmacokinetics/drug metabolism experts with an average of 15 years Pharma R&D drug discovery experience. The team is engaged in identifying novel drug targets arising from the faculty’s research and translating them into new drug therapies for clinical development. She also founded and is leading the first International Consortium of Academic Drug Discovery (www.addconsortium.org) with over 150 university-led translational centers and 1500 members in an effort to coordinate and enhance academic drug discovery.

Rana Rais is a Neurology faculty member at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Director of the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics group of Johns Hopkins Drug Discovery (JHDD). She received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences and has substantial experience in biopharmaceutics, drug transport, drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics, formulations, and drug delivery including prodrug design and characterization. She has co-authored over 45 publications, and is an inventor on nine patents and applications.

Jonathan Powell is a Professor of Oncology and Pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He received his AB from Dartmouth College and his M.D. Ph.D. from Emory University School of Medicine. His Post-graduate clinical training included the Osler Internal Medicine Residency Program at Johns Hopkins and Fellowship training in Hematology-Oncology at The Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and NHLBI at the NIH. While at the NIH Dr. Powell was a post-doctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Dr. Ronald Schwartz. He joined the faculty of Johns Hopkins in 2001. Dr. Powell’s lab is interested in studying the cellular, biochemical and molecular mechanisms surrounding T cell activation, differentiation and tolerance. In elucidating fundamental insight into how the immune system is controlled, the lab has been investigating the role of mTOR and metabolism in immunology. This work established the principle that differential mTOR activation and subsequent metabolic pathway activation define T cell fate decisions. Overall, these studies have provided important insight into devising novel regimens for immunotherapy for cancer, bone marrow transplantation, autoimmune & inflammatory diseases. Dr. Powell is currently an Associate Director of the Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and is the head of the program of Cancer and Immuno- metabolism.

Pavel Majer, Ph.D.

Dr Majer is Group Leader for medicinal Chemistry at the Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry (IOCB) at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic since 2011. He developed orally active prodrugs of potent inhibitor of GCPII and his team participated in several projects and submitted 4 patent applications.

Dr Majer was Group Leader at Sequoia Pharmaceuticals between 2007 and 2010 where he led medicinal chemistry team on Human Hepatitis C research project, He designed and synthesized inhibitors of protease from Human Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) and Developed series of potent inhibitors of drug-resistant mutants of HCV Protease. Dr Majer was also Senior Scientists At MGI Pharma between 1998 and 2006. During his work at MGI, he designed and synthesized clinical candidates for Neuroprotective therapeutics program (Phase I trial) and developed method for large scale synthesis of Glutamate Carboxy Peptidase II (GCP II) inhibitors.

Dr Majer received his M.S. in Organic Chemistry, summa cum laude from Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry, Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic He was Postdoctoral Fellow, and Associate scientist at National Cancer Institute.

Dr Majer Authored 70 papers with 1730 citations and filed 10 patents, with 5 pending patent applications.

Dr. Dean Felsher is a Professor in the Division of Oncology, Departments of Medicine and Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine.  He is currently the Founding Director of the Translational and Applied Medicine Program, Director of Oncology Research, Director of Medical Scientist Training Program Admissions, Director of Advanced Residency Training Program and the co-Director of the Cancer Translational Nanotechnology Training Program.   He received his BA from the University of Chicago and his MD and PhD from the UCLA Medical Scientist Training Program. He did a residency in internal medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at UCSF. He joined the faculty at Stanford in 1999. He has over 20 years of research experience working with experimental transgenic mouse models and has pioneered the utilization of the Tet System to generate conditional transgenic mouse models of lymphoma, hepatocellular adenocarcinoma, osteogenic sarcoma, kidney adenocarcinoma and lung adenocarcinoma. He has a mentored to date over 80 members in his laboratory many of whom are now independent scientists in Academia and Industry.  His laboratory currently consists of 20 research associates, post-doctoral fellows, medical, college and graduate students. Dr. Felsher’s work has helped to establish the general concepts of the reversibility of cancer, oncogene addiction, tumor dormancy.  His work has been published and highlighted in articles in Science, Journal of Clinical Investigation and Nature. He has published over 150 papers, given more than 260 invited talks.  He is a Senior Editor of Cancer Research and Oncogene.

Dr. Chi Van Dang is scientific director of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and Professor at The Wistar Institute. His research helped define the complex functions of the MYC oncogene, a central switch in human cancer, identifying key domains that mediate its transcription factor activity. The Dang Lab also established the first mechanistic link between MYC and cellular energy metabolism, contributing to the concept that genetic alterations re-program energy utilization and render cancer cells addicted to certain energy sources. His Lab further documented that MYC could disrupt circadian metabolism and is exploiting these concepts for therapeutic targeting of cancer cell metabolism as a new anticancer strategy. He is the editor-in-chief of Cancer Research, a member of the National Academy of Medicine and fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Association for Cancer Research Academy.  He received his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Georgetown University, followed by an M.D. degree from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology.