Meet Our Team

John Simard graduated from the biochemistry program at the University of Saskatchewan in 1992 and went on to study immunology at the prestigious department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto. In 1994 Simard left graduate studies to work with the Amgen Research Institute, where he collaborated with acclaimed scientist Tak W. Mak to write a textbook of immunology and co-author numerous publications. Simard co-authored a seminal manuscript with Nobel Laureate Rolf Zinkernagel on the biology of cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which lead to Simard launching CTL ImmunoTherapies Corp. in Toronto in 1997.

Mr. Simard created a partnership between CTL ImmunoTherapies and Alfred Mann’s MiniMed Inc., to use the latter’s technology as a delivery system for cancer vaccines. This resulted in Mr. Simard migrating CTL Immunotherapies to Los Angeles, where he built the company’s operations. Based on technologies being developed for cancer vaccines, in 1999 Mr. Simard spun-out the company Allecure to facilitate commercialization of allergy treatments. In 2001 Mr. Simard merged Allecure and CTL Immunotherapies, together with a third company, to create MannKind Corp., a namesake company for Alfred Mann.  Mr. Simard served on the board of MannKind and was President of its Immunotherapy division until 2002.

In 2005 Mr. Simard founded XBiotech. The Company began by establishing laboratory operations in Boston, Copenhagen and Zurich. Mr. Simard moved to Switzerland to manage European operations and in 2008 established XBiotech USA, Inc., and built laboratories and manufacturing infrastructure to facilitate clinical development of its therapies. In 2015 Mr. Simard lead XBiotech through an initial public offering without conventional underwriting. In 2019, Mr. Simard orchestrated the sale of  True Human antibody for cash and milestones of $1.35 billion. Simard is inventor of over 300 issued and pending patents relating to immunotherapies for cancer and infectious disease, and with regard to molecular identification and genetic cloning of human antibodies.

Dr. Shivaswamy was appointed as the Company’s Chief Scientific Officer in November 2017. As CSO Dr. Shivaswamy oversees all scientific and technical operations with respect to research and development and GMP production of antibody. Dr. Shivaswamy has previously served as the Company’s Vice President of Research and Development since January 2015 where she led teams involved in various Research & Development projects at XBiotech including Antibody Discovery, Cell Line Development, and pre-clinical toxicology and efficacy studies using animal models. Dr. Shivaswamy has been with the Company since 2009 also holding positions of Director of Research & Development (2011-2015) and Senior Scientist (2009-2011). Prior to joining XBiotech, Dr. Shivaswamy was a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology at the University of Texas at Austin. She has a Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology from the Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology, India. Dr. Shivaswamy’s academic studies have involved elucidating mechanisms for regulation of gene expression.

Dr. Wu has served XBiotech as VP of Quality Control since July 2017. She oversees quality control function to support CMC and clinical operations, including in process, release, stability testing of API and drug product, Microbiology and Environmental Monitoring, analytical development and validation, Raw Material testing, Critical Reagents and Reference Standard, Comparability Studies and clinical pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamic, and anti-drug antibody testing. Dr. Wu initially joined XBiotech team in 2011 as a Senior Scientist of Analytical Development. She has a B.S degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Peking University (China), and a Ph.D degree in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University. She went to University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas for post-doctoral research. Her work in graduate school and post-doctoral research were published in ten peer-reviewed journal articles and were mainly focused on elucidating mechanisms of action for nuclear and non-nuclear pathways for estrogen and xenoestrogens in cancer and other clinical conditions, utilizing both in-vitro and in-vivo models.

Ms. Gonzalez has served as our Vice President of Quality since February 2008. Before joining XBiotech, Ms. Gonzalez was Director of Quality at Carbomedics, where she held various roles including Director of R&D, Director of Manufacturing Mechanical Heart Valve, and Director of Tissue Valve and Quality.

As a Ph.D. level Protein Biochemist with Postdoctoral training and relevant biotech experience, Dr. Cavalier oversees all aspects of cGMP manufacturing for XBiotech's True Human™ monoclonal antibody platform utilizing single use methodologies. He is responsible for oversight of all manufacturing personnel and manages the day to day operations of production to ensure timely delivery of drug product to our clinical research groups that have met all quality and engineering specification requirements. Previously at XBiotech, Dr. Cavalier had a role as an R&D Senior Scientist focusing on the purification of both antigens and antibodies expressed from bacteria and mammalian cells. He also led initial protein characterization, protein analytical assay development, and epitope binning activities to support antibody discovery.

Before XBiotech, Dr. Cavalier was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD. There, as a member of the Center of Biomolecular Therapeutics, he worked as a structural biologist using X-ray Crystallography and NMR to investigate the structure-activity relationships of small molecule inhibitors to the targeted protein-protein interactions. Dr. Cavalier earned his doctorate in biochemistry at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, LA.  At LSU, he used X-ray crystallography to determine the underlying mechanisms of enzymatic catalysis and to progress a rational drug design program while gaining extensive hands-on experience at the synchrotron beam-line operation. Through his career Dr. Cavalier acquired a significant background in Protein Biochemistry, protein/antibody purification, and biophysics. He has instructed emerging scientists, managed laboratory staff, authored peer-reviewed publications and grant applications, and presented data to principal scientists at major collaborating institutions.​