Tallac Therapeutics appoints chief medical officer
Tallac Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held Californian biopharmaceutical company, has appointed Kevin N. Heller, M.D., as chief medical officer.
The Tallac team has demonstrated pre-clinical proof-of-concept for their novel Toll-like Receptor Agonist Antibody Conjugate (TRAAC) platform approach to engage both the innate and adaptive immunity to treat cancer. It is working on advancing TAC-001, a first-in-class systemic TLR9 agonist and the first TRAAC candidate, into the clinic.
Dr. Heller previously served as executive vice president, research and development at Jasper Therapeutics. Prior to that, he was chief medical officer at NextCure, Inc., a biotechnology company developing immunotherapy-based biologics for cancer and other diseases.
Before that, he was vice president and head of antibody clinical development at Incyte, coordinating immunotherapy clinical development strategies for multiple antibody programs. He joined Incyte from AstraZeneca, where he was senior medical director, overseeing global medicines development in oncology.
Dr. Heller began his biopharma industry experience at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he led early development programs and was responsible for authoring protocols and managing first-in-human clinical trials. His also served as global lead for Oncology Search and Evaluation at BMS, where he was responsible for leading a team matrix across disciplines during due diligence activities and preparing recommendations for possible acquisitions.
Dr. Heller received a Bachelor’s degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and a medical degree from George Washington University. He trained in pediatrics and pediatric hematology/oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Following his fellowship, Dr. Heller joined the faculty of the Rockefeller University as instructor and subsequently chief clinical scholar of Clinical Investigation.
