MEET THE LEADERSHIP TEAM
Dr. Patel has served as a member of the board of directors and as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Protagonist Therapeutics since December 2008. He has 38 years of executive, entrepreneurial, and scientific experience that span the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries. Prior to joining Protagonist, Dr. Patel served from 2006 to 2008 as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Arête Therapeutics, a privately held company focused on novel drugs for metabolic syndrome. Previously, he was the Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Miikana Therapeutics, an oncology based company, from 2003 until acquired by Entremed (later renamed CASI Pharmaceuticals) in 2005. Prior to Miikana, Dr. Patel held positions of increasing responsibility at Versicor (later renamed Vicuron) from 1996 to 2003, most recently as Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery and Licensing. Vicuron research and development efforts led to two marketed drugs, anidulafungin (Eraxis®), and Dalbavancin (Dalvance®), and the Company was acquired by Pfizer in 2005 in a $1.9 billion cash transaction. From 1993 to 1996, Dr. Patel was a director of chemistry at the combinatorial chemistry company Affymax. Dr. Patel was a medicinal chemist at Bristol-Myers Squibb from 1985 to 1993. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Rutgers University, New Jersey and his M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Chemistry from S. P. University, Vallabh Vidyanagar, India.
Dr. Molina joined Protagonist in November 2022 after five years as Chief Medical Officer at Sutro Biopharma. Prior to Sutro, Dr. Molina was Vice President, Oncology Scientific Innovation at Johnson & Johnson. Earlier in his career, Dr. Molina was Chief Medical Officer at Cougar Biotechnology, acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2009. From 1991 to 2002, Dr. Molina was a faculty staff physician in the Department of Hematology/Bone Marrow Transplantation and Department of Medical Oncology/Therapeutics Research at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center and Adjunct Professor from 2002 to 2004. Dr. Molina earned his M.D. and M.S. in physiology degrees from Stanford University Medical Center, and a B.A. in psychology and B.S. in zoology from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Molina maintains an Adjunct Clinical Faculty appointment in the Department of Medicine, Division of Oncology, Stanford University School of Medicine.
Dr. Saks serves as our Clinical Development Advisor. His leadership in drug development spans decades. Prior to his work with Protagonist, Dr. Saks served as Chief Development Officer and board member at Auspex Pharmaceuticals until the time of its acquisition by Teva Pharmaceuticals. Before his tenure at Auspex, Dr. Saks was a co-founder of Jazz Pharmaceuticals where he also served as Chief Executive Officer. Earlier in his career, Dr. Saks held positions as company group chairman of ALZA Corporation and member of the Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Operating Committee. Dr. Saks has also held leadership and management positions at Schering-Plough, Xoma and Genentech. Dr. Saks serves on the boards of directors of Quanta Therapeutics and Hinge Bio. Dr. Saks received a B.S. in Biology and his M.D. from the University of Illinois.
Newman is a biopharmaceutical executive with extensive experience in drug development from translational research to medical affairs who is currently employed as an independent consultant in the biopharmaceutical industry. Previously, Newman was Head of Immunology Development in Janssen R&D leading Phase 1-3 development and investment globally, spanning clinical departments that cover a broad range of medical specialties including Rheumatology, Gastroenterology, Dermatology, Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Medicine, Biomarkers, and Systems Pharmacology. Newman joined the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson through Centocor in 2002 as Associate Director in Medical Affairs in support of the the Oncology Franchise and in support of REMICADE® (infliximab) Rheumatology and Dermatology Franchises. He moved to Immunology Research and Development in 2004 to lead clinical development of STELARA for the treatment of psoriasis, subsequently assuming broad oversight of STELARA development in psoriatic arthritis, Crohn’s disease, and pediatric psoriasis, and Phase 2 programs in other immune-mediated inflammatory disorders. In 2012, Newman became Vice President, Gastroenterology/Dermatology Clinical Development overseeing Phase 2 and 3 development of all Janssen GI and Dermatology assets. In 2014, he assumed the position of Head of Immunology Development in Janssen R&D where he continued until his retirement from Janssen in 2021. Since leaving Janssen, Newman has served as an independent consultant for multiple small biotech and start-up companies.
Newman earned his medical degree from the University of Alabama School of Medicine and completed his residency training in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He completed sub-specialty training in hematology and medical oncology at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1995 joined the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, where he practiced and ran a research lab focused on molecular oncology and tumor angiogenesis until he joined J&J.
Dr. Gupta joined Protagonist Therapeutics in 2019 and currently holds the position of Executive Vice President of Clinical Development. His extensive experience spans drug development, from translational research to medical affairs. He currently serves on the scientific advisory boards of several pharmaceutical companies.
Previously, Dr. Gupta served as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at Impax Pharmaceuticals from 2008 to 2019, where he spearheaded the development, approval and launch of several pharmaceutical products in the neurology domain; Rytary® and CREXONT®.
Prior to his tenure at Impax, he was Senior Vice President (SVP) and Distinguished Research Fellow at Johnson & Johnson from 2002 to 2008. In this role, he oversaw the early development of products, collaborating with departments such as Clinical Research, Translational Medicine, Clinical Pharmacology, Biomarkers, and Systems Pharmacology. Before J&J acquired ALZA, Dr. Gupta’s career at ALZA spanned from 1989 to 2001, where he progressively assumed greater responsibilities, ultimately being promoted to Vice President of Clinical Pharmacology, Product Discovery, and Clinical Development. Dr. Gupta’s contributions have been substantial across various therapeutic areas, including the development of products such as Duragesic®, Nicoderm®, CONCERTA®, JURNISTA®, VIADUR®, Ditropan-XL®, Transfenta®, and Invega®.
He holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacokinetics from the University of Manchester, UK (1987), and in 1989 he completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Clinical Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Mr. Ali joined as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in April 2022. Mr. Ali previously served as Chief Accounting Officer at Theravance Biopharma, overseeing various departments including FP&A, taxation, accounting and financial reporting, strategic sourcing, and finance operations. Among other notable achievements while at Theravance, he was part of the team that successfully raised $130 million in equity financing in February 2020, and a further $115 million in June 2021. Before that, he was Vice President and Corporate Controller at Depomed, where he supported five product launches and four successful product acquisitions. Mr. Ali is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England & Wales, a qualification that he obtained in conjunction with studying accounting at the University of North London, UK, the US equivalent of a B.S. in Business Administration with a concentration in accounting.
Mr. Gosling joined Protagonist as Executive Vice President, General Counsel in September 2020. He has more than 20 years of legal expertise advising Bay Area life sciences and pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Protagonist, Mr. Gosling served as General Counsel of Depomed, a commercial stage specialty pharmaceutical company, for 12 years. Prior to Depomed, he was a partner in the global law firm of Heller Ehrman, where his practice focused on general corporate, securities, M&A and collaboration matters for public life science companies. Mr. Gosling holds a J.D. from the University of Chicago and a B.A. in Economics from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas.
Dr. Masjedizadeh has served as Executive Vice President & Chief Technical Officer since June 2021 and has served as EVP/VP of Pharmaceutical Development from 2017-2021. Prior to joining Protagonist, he was VP and Senior Director of Technical Operations at Principia Biopharma (2012-2017), focusing on CMC development of Reversible Covalent BTK inhibitors. He worked at Roche Pharmaceuticals both in Palo Alto, CA and Nutley, NJ from 1991 to 2012 with increasing responsibilities leading to his promotion to Director of Drug Substance & Supply. Dr. Masjedizadeh received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) and conducted his post-doctoral work also at UCSB.
Dr. Bhandari has served as Executive Vice President & Chief Discovery Officer since January 2022 and has served as Senior Vice President and Vice President of Chemistry and Process Research from 2017 to 2021. Ashok joined Protagonist in 2011 as Director of Chemistry and focused on the discovery of novel peptide therapeutics leading to Protagonist's clinical pipeline. Prior to joining Protagonist, Dr. Bhandari worked at Affymax for 14 years, from 1994 to 2008, where he worked on a variety of peptide drug discovery, preclinical and clinical development programs on targets of protein-protein interactions. Dr. Bhandari received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) and conducted his post-doctoral work also at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
