Functional Leadership Team

Kwadwo Bediako joins Sutro BioPharma from Seagen Inc. where he was an Executive Director, Global Product Team Lead (PTL) within the Program and Portfolio Management group. While at Seagen, Mr. Bediako provided global program strategic leadership and execution for two key commercial products: ADCETRIS® and TIVDAK® within the oncology therapeutic area. As a PTL, ADCETRIS® submitted and received Seagen’s first pediatric approval in Classic Hodgkin lymphoma (cHL) among other notable global label expansion submissions for the product.

Prior to Seagen, Kwadwo worked at global companies, including Orchard Therapeutics, Gilead, Amgen and MedImmune (now AstraZeneca), where he had increasing leadership responsibilities within the program management and leadership across multiple oncology programs in early and stage development with a successful track record.

Mr. Bediako received his B.S from D’Youville University and M.S and MBA from Johns Hopkins University

Craig Berman, M.D. has over 17 years of experience in drug development and held increasing leadership positions. Most recently, as a Vice President of Clinical Development at QED Therapeutics. Dr. Berman lead the clinical development of PEGPH20 at Halozyme from 2016-2018, cabozantinib at Exelixis 2013-2015, and enzalutamide at Medivation (currently Pfizer) 2009-2013, including successful NDA and launch. Dr. Berman has worked on several immune oncology programs including, GVAX whole cell vaccine at Cell Genesys, intratumoral injection of TLR-9 agonists in combination with pembrolizumab at Dynavax, and PEGPH20 in combination with atezolizumab in collaboration with Genentech and Halozyme. Dr. Berman received a B.A. in Chemistry from Northwestern University in Evanston, an M.D. from the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and completed a residency in urology at the University of Iowa and post-residency training in urologic oncology at the University of Colorado.

Dr. Garrison Beye is an experienced biotech leader with over 20 years of industrial experience covering research through commercial pharmaceutical production. Over his career, Dr. Beye has contributed to the development, commercialization, and/or commercial production of a multitude of approved drug products, including: Photofrin®, Visudyne®, Avonex®, Tysabri®, Amevive®, Zynrelef®, Kogenate®, Kovaltry®, and Jivi®. Most recently, Dr. Beye led the multi-product, vial-to-vial Quality Control function at the Bayer Supply Center in Berkeley California that distributed recombinant rFVIII to patients world wide. Dr. Beye is the author of multiple journal articles, a book chapter, and shares invention of a patent. Dr. Beye holds a Ph.D. (organic chemistry) and an MBA.

Dr. Bleker joins Sutro Biopharma with over 18 years of experience in drug development including pre- and post-market pharmacovigilance, as well as medical affairs. He received a B.S. in psychobiology from the University of California, Riverside, and M.D. from Xochicalco University in Baja California, Mexico. Prior to joining Sutro, Dr. Bleker served as head of pharmacovigilance and safety risk management at Mirati Therapeutics. At Mirati, he established the pharmacovigilance department and supported the entire Mirati portfolio including the development of their KRASG12C Inhibitor, KrazatiTM (adagrasib), from first-in-human study through FDA approval. Prior leadership roles include head of drug safety at Nektar Therapeutics, Santarus where Dr. Bleker contributed to FDA approval of Uceris® (budesonide), and Hana Biosciences.

Regina Cheng has over 25 years of financial accounting experience and has managed our finance and accounting team since 2015. Prior to joining Sutro, while at Keynote Systems (acquired by Thoma Bravo, LLC), she built and led the finance team as the company’s first controller and assisted in its highly successful initial public offering and follow-on financing. Ms. Cheng has also held various corporate and divisional controllership management positions at several private and publicly held technology companies, such as CompareNetworks, Inc., TeraRecon (acquired by SymphonyAI Group), Sungard Data Systems (acquired by FIS) and Sterling Software (acquired by Computer Associates). Ms. Cheng received her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, and is a certified public accountant (inactive status) in California.

Greet Heremans is a seasoned clinical research professional with over 20 years of experience in clinical operations. She obtained her Masters in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Antwerp in Belgium and in 2020 graduated from an Executive MBA program at the University of San Francisco. She started her career as a Clinical Research Associate at one of the largest CROs, IQVIA, and fell in love with the complexity of clinical research, the partnership with physicians & study coordinators and the collective mission to improve patients’ lives. Over the years she grew into roles with larger scope of accountability and developed a passion for building and leading teams, designing and delivering large portfolios of clinical trials. During her 14-years tenure at Roche/Genentech she proudly contributed to the first market approvals for pertuzumab in MBC and atezolizumab in UBC. She believes in the strength of the collective and enjoys engaging with diverse cultures having worked and lived in 4 different countries, Belgium, UK, Switzerland and US. Outside of work you can find Greet in a salsa lesson, a pilates class, on a hike, in a Toastmasters meeting or engaged in conversations with fellow industry colleagues on making clinical trials accessible to ALL patients.

Dr. Heidi Hoffmann, VP Supply Chain, has 27+ years of experience in biotechnology, specializing in process development, technology transfer, manufacturing of vaccines and biological therapeutics. After receiving her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, Heidi began her career at Aviron, where she worked on process development and production of vaccines for EBV, PIV and influenza (FluMist®). Heidi then joined Valentis, where she led the team responsible for process development, technology transfer and clinical production of plasmid DNA for gene therapy. In 2002, Heidi returned to vaccine work by joining VaxGen, Dr. Hoffmann was responsible for process development and manufacturing of anthrax vaccine. Later, Heidi transitioned into a technology transfer role, hiring and leading the VaxGen oversight team for the successful transfer of commercial production of Bristol-Meyer Squibb’s Orencia® (abatacept) into the Celltrion manufacturing facility in South Korea. After completion, Heidi joined non-profit Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases (GSID) as Project Director responsible for coordinating the outsourcing of process development and manufacture of HIV vaccines. Dr. Hoffmann joined Sutro in February 2011, and currently leads Supply Chain as well as outsourced cGMP manufacturing for protein therapeutics and ADCs produced using Sutro’s proprietary cell-free protein expression system.

Diana Landa brings to Sutro 20 years of global regulatory affairs experience with new product development and marketed product life-cycle management. Prior to Sutro, Ms. Landa was the Executive Director of Global Regulatory Affairs at Amgen, a role in which she provided leadership for a large portfolio of products, acted as regulatory lead, and oversaw health authority interactions. Prior to Amgen, Ms. Landa held positions at Teva Branded Pharmaceutical Products R&D Inc., Teva Pharmaceuticals and Baxter Healthcare. She received a B.A. in Biochemistry from LaSalle University and a M.S. in Regulatory Affairs/Quality Assurance from Temple University, School of Pharmacy.

Carlos Lugo has over 30 years of combined experience in Quality, Compliance, Regulatory Affairs, Validation and Manufacturing, and has been the Head of Quality for Sutro since 2016. Prior to joining Sutro, Carlos held the role of Global Quality Systems Director at Bayer supporting Kogenate^TM and Kovaltry^TM hematology products. Similarly, as QA Director, he was directly involved in the early phase clinical supply activities leading to the successful commercial launch of Keytruda® at Merck & Co.  Carlos has also held various increased leadership positions at Hospira (acquired by Pfizer), Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Baxter supporting large molecules, small molecules, medical devices and combination products. Mr. Lugo received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus.

Mr. Luhar has over 30 years of experience in biotech operations, including Manufacturing, Manufacturing Science and Technology, Engineering and Logistics. He joined Sutro in 2016 as Senior Director of Manufacturing and was promoted to Executive Director in 2018. At Sutro, Mr. Luhar has led the formation of Sutro’s manufacturing organization and GMP compliant operations and is responsible for Sutro’s cGMP manufacturing facility. Prior to joining Sutro, Mr. Luhar held senior leadership positions at Boehringer-Ingelheim, Novartis, Genzyme, and Baxter Bioscience where he worked for 18 years. Mr. Luhar received his B.A. in Biology from San Jose State University.

Steve Michel, M.B.A., VP Information Technology & Facilities Operations, joined Sutro as a consultant in 2009 and has 30 years of operations experience. Early in his career, he worked in digital photography at Sony Corporation, followed by managing life sciences IT for Arris Pharmaceuticals, AXYS Advanced Technologies and Discovery Partners International.

Previously, led the sales team at Apple, North America as their Retail Business Development Manager. Afterwards, joined Workwerks as their Transportation Commerce Software Developer and created IT consultancy Strategic Entrance, LLC.

While at Sutro, he leads IT and R&D facilities operations as well as construction management, EH&S, procurement and software development for scientific & business needs. Steve earned his M.B.A. from University of Illinois, B.F.A. from University of Southern California and maintains current PMP & PMI-ACP certifications.

Werner Rubas, Ph.D., brings to Sutro 30 years of biotech and pharmaceutical industry experience. Formerly, Dr. Rubas was at Nektar Therapeutics for over nine years, most recently as Executive Director in Non-Clinical Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics. At Nektar he provided leadership support, directed the generation of data packages for regulatory submissions of NKTR-214, NKTR-358, NKTR-262 and NKTR-255, filed a patent application for an immunotherapeutic tumor treatment method, and provided scientific input on cross-functional teams from research concepts to late stage development. Prior to Nektar, Dr. Werner was at Roche in Palo Alto, where he was the Associate Director of the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics group. Additionally, he has been a SPARK advisor at Stanford University since 2010 and lectures classes on Drug Development at UC Berkeley Extension. Dr. Rubas earned his Ph.D. from ETH, Zurich and received his pharmacy license from the School of Pharmacy at ETH, Zurich.

Dr. Alice Yam is an experienced leader with 20 years of experience in research and biologics drug discovery. As Vice President of Drug Discovery at Sutro Biopharma, she has a proven track record of successfully building preclinical portfolios, contributing to the identification and optimization of several clinical assets. In particular, she was responsible for the discovery program for M1231, a novel MUC1-EGFR bispecific ADC developed in partnership with EMD Serono. Her work has focused in several areas including antibody discovery, protein engineering, and preclinical development. 

Prior to Sutro, Alice worked in biomarker development at Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics where she focused on aggregation-mediated diseases like Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. Subsequently, she joined Sutro in 2012 to work on drug development where she took on responsibilities in both functional and program leadership. Alice earned her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University and her B.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Gang Yin is an accomplished scientist and experienced R&D team leader with over 18 years of expertise in research and drug development. After earning his Ph.D. from Tsinghua University, he started working on the development and application of Cell-free protein synthesis in the lab of Prof. Jim Swartz at Stanford University. In 2004, Dr. Yin joined Sutro Biopharma where he has held various positions and is currently leading the Platform Engineering and Process Research Department.

With a proven track record of success as a project leader on multiple programs, Dr. Yin has contributed to the progression of several programs into clinical trials. Notably, the collaboration with Merck led to the discovery of MK-1484. Dr. Yin is an expert in ADC and cytokine biologics development strategies, with a particular emphasis on strain engineering, antibody discovery, expression, purification, conjugation, and drug lead characterization. He is the pioneer of site-specific ADC development through non-natural amino acid incorporation.

Dr. Yin's strategic and scientific leadership skills, coupled with his expertise in protein biochemistry, have significantly contributed to the success of the company. He has authored 30+ publications and holds 10+ patents.