At XBiotech, our team is comprised of industry pioneers, visionary experts, and dedicated professionals working together to advance True Human™ antibody therapies. Their collective expertise and commitment drive the company towards innovative solutions for better healthcare outcomes.
Leadership
Our leadership team brings together decades of experience in biotechnology, research, and clinical development.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
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.
Chief Scientific Officer
Chief Scientific Officer
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.
Vice President of Quality Control
Vice President of Quality Control
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.
Vice President of Quality
Vice President of Quality
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.
Senior Director of Manufacturing
Senior Director of Manufacturing
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.
Guiding Our Vision
The Board of Directors at XBiotech is committed to supporting the company's strategic direction and doing all in its power to help achieve the Company;s mission. The diverse backgrounds in science and business provide invaluable insights and and good governance.
Director
Director
Peter Libby, MD, is a cardiovascular specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, and holds the Mallinckrodt Professorship of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He served as Chief of Cardiovascular Medicine at BWH from 1998 - 2014. His areas of clinical expertise include general and preventive cardiology. His current major research focus is the role of inflammation in vascular diseases such as atherosclerosis. Dr. Libby has a particular devotion to translate his basic laboratory studies to pilot and then large-scale clinical cardiovascular outcome trials. He instigated and helped to lead the large scale Canakinumab Anti-Inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Trial that provided clinical validation of the role of inflammation in atherosclerosis.
Dr. Libby has received numerous awards and recognitions for his research accomplishments, including most recently the Gold Medal of the European Society of Cardiology (2011), the Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association (2011), the Anitschkow Prize in Atherosclerosis Research of the European Atherosclerosis Society (2013), and the Special Award of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology (2014). He has received a number of lifetime achievement awards various organizations. Dr. Libby was selected as Consulting Editor of the year by Circulation Research in 2015, and received a 2015 High Citation Award as an editorial board member of Arteriosclerosis Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology. He was the laureate of the Ernst Jung Gold Medal for Medicine for 2016, and received the Earl Benditt Award from the North American Vascular Biology Organization in 2017. In 2018 he received the Arthur Agaston Award for Preventive Cardiology and an honorary doctorate degree from the Université Laval.
Dr. Libby’s elected professional memberships include the Association of American Physicians, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and honorary memberships in the British Atherosclerosis Society, the Japan Circulation Society, and the Japanese College of Cardiology. He has served as the President of the Association of University Cardiologists. He also has served in many roles as a volunteer for the American Heart Association, including chairman of several research committees and member of the executive committees of the Councils on Arteriosclerosis, Circulation, and Basic Science. He presided the American College of Cardiology’s Research Allocations Peer Review Committee for two terms. He has frequently consulted for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, including a 5-year term on the Board of Scientific Councilors. He directed the DW Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center and two cycles of Leducq Foundation Awards, and has received continuous funding from the US National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) for several decades.
An author and lecturer on cardiovascular medicine and atherosclerosis, Dr. Libby has published extensively in medical journals including Circulation, Journal of Clinical Investigation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, New England Journal of Medicine, and Nature. He is an Editor of Braunwald’s Heart Disease, having served as the Editor-in Chief of the 8th Edition. Dr. Libby has also contributed chapters on the pathogenesis, treatment, and prevention of atherosclerosis to many editions of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine. He has held numerous visiting professorships and delivered more than 100 major named or keynote lectures throughout the world. Dr. Libby earned his medical degree at the University of California, San Diego, and completed his training in internal medicine and cardiology at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now Brigham and Women’s Hospital). He also holds an honorary MA degree from Harvard University, and an honorary doctorate from the University of Lille, France.
Director
Director
Mr. Waldin is a lawyer in Ontario, Canada and is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. He is the principal of Waldin Barristers, a boutique civil litigation and advisory firm in Toronto, Canada. Mr. Waldin practices trial and appellate advocacy principally in the area of complex corporate commercial litigation. He has acted as lead counsel in all levels of court in Ontario and Canada, including the Supreme Court of Canada, the Federal Court of Canada, the Ontario Court of Appeal, Ontario Superior Court of Justice and before Canadian federal and provincial administrative tribunals. Mr. Waldin’s counsel and strategic advice is regularly sought by both publicly traded and closely held companies based in Canada, the European Union and the United States, concerning regulatory and administrative law matters, the structuring of shareholder relations and contentious corporate transactions. He has held directorships in private and multinational companies, principally in the manufacturing, aviation and pharmaceutical industries. A graduate of the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School, Mr. Waldin was called to the Ontario bar in 1976, served his articles of clerkship under the late Mr. Justice Archie Campbell at the Policy Development Branch of the Ministry of the Attorney General for Ontario. He was Law Clerk to the Honourable Willard Z. Estey, then Chief Justice of the High Court of Justice of Ontario.
Director
Director
Mr. McKenzie is the former Managing Director of Pointer Management Company, Chattanooga, Tennessee, which he co-founded in 1990 to invest in hedge funds and similar types of partnerships utilizing a fund of funds approach. From 1982 until 1990, he was a private investor in New York City, and a director of several public and private companies. From 1980 until 1982, he was founding general partner of TIGER, a global hedge fund. From 1971 until 1980, he was a Vice President of Kidder, Peabody & Co., Inc. in New York. Mr. McKenzie is a graduate of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, and the Wharton Graduate division of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Modern medicine should help patients feel better, not worse. At XBiotech, we believe in the Hippocratic principle of "do no harm." We believe this is inherent to the innovative True Human™ antibody medicines we are developing. True Human™ antibodies move beyond the idea that effective medicines must come with toxicity or harmful side effects.
By utilizing the body’s natural immune system, XBiotech develops therapies that help you heal and feel better.
