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how can we help?

our bold mission

We’re passionate about improving patient outcomes and saving lives by developing better cancer therapeutics that specifically target tumors and their underlying biology.

Cybrexa alphalex™ technology leverages the low-pH tumor microenvironment for selective targeting.

Explore Our Technology

alphalex is unique because it:

  • allows for intracellular delivery of anti-cancer agents
  • is antigen-independent
  • can be conjugated to multiple classes of small molecule therapeutics
  • provides deep tissue penetration
  • enables simple and scalable manufacturing due to purely synthetic components

alphalex enables us to rapidly bring novel compounds with robust IP to pivotal studies, enable highly potent drugs and combination therapies that are currently limited by toxicity, and expand efficacy of existing anticancer agents to larger, high unmet need populations. We’ve got exciting things in the works.

See Our Pipeline

management team

Per Hellsund

President & CEO

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Per Hellsund

President & CEO

Before co-founding Cybrexa, Per was President & CEO of CyVek, where in just over four years he led the development, commercialization, and exit of a novel automated immunoassay system that was acquired by Bio-Techne. Prior to that, he was the President of inc.jet, Inc., a startup that led the introduction of thermal inkjet printing in the commercial printing space. Per has undergraduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business, and a Master’s Degree in Management from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Vishwas Paralkar, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

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Vishwas Paralkar, PhD

Chief Scientific Officer

Vishwas brings more than 23 years of executive experience in addition to extensive drug discovery and research experience. He most recently served as Chief Scientific Officer of Karos Pharmaceuticals where he was hired as the first employee and served as the CSO until its acquisition in August of 2017. Prior to joining Karos, Vishwas was a Senior Director at Pfizer, which he joined in 1995 and left to join Karos in June of 2010. Before that, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.

Robert Aiello, PhD

Biology Director

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Robert Aiello, PhD

Biology Director

Robert has more than 26 years of experience and accomplishments in all phases of drug discovery and development, from justification, identification, and prosecution of therapeutic targets to advancement of compounds through development and drug safety. He most recently served as Senior Director of Biology for Karos Pharmaceuticals and was responsible for overseeing biology efforts in the identification and development of small molecules. Prior to joining Karos, he had a 20-year career in the Cardiovascular & Metabolic Disease Unit of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Bob joined Pfizer after a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin.

Keely Zipp

VP of Marketing

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Keely Zipp

VP of Marketing

Keely adds nearly 15 years of strategy and marketing experience to the Cybrexa team and leads the company’s marketing, communications, and business development initiatives. She brings with her a breadth of knowledge in strategic marketing, corporate operations, and business development from various roles at Incyte Corporation, GlaxoSmithKline, and Wyeth, a Pfizer company. Keely holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and she graduated magna cum laude with a BA in Biochemistry from Dartmouth College.

join our team

Cybrexa is a passionate group of teamwork-driven, dynamic, and energetic people. We seek like-minded individuals who share our core philosophy for innovative, relentless, and milestone-driven drug development.

View open Positions

scientific advisors

Dr. Timothy Yap, MBBS, PhD,
MRCP (UK), BSc (Hons)

Scientific Advisor

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Dr. Timothy Yap, MBBS, PhD,
MRCP (UK), BSc (Hons)

Scientific Advisor

Timothy is a medical oncologist and physician-scientist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also an Associate Professor in the Department for Investigational Cancer Therapeutics (Phase I Program) and the Department of Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology. Additionally, Timothy is Medical Director of the Institute for Applied Cancer Science and the Associate Director of Translational Research in the Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy. Prior to his current positions at MD Anderson, Timothy was a Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. He holds a BSc degree with First Class Honors in Immunology and Infectious Diseases from the Imperial College London and was awarded the Huggett Memorial Prize. He holds anMD from Imperial College London and completed his medical training at Oxford.

Ranjit Bindra, MD, PhD

Chief Scientific Advisor &
Scientific co-founder

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Ranjit Bindra, MD, PhD

Chief Scientific Advisor &
Scientific co-founder

Ranjit is a physician-scientist and biotech entrepreneur at the Yale School of Medicine. Clinically, Ranjit treats adult and pediatric primary CNS tumors, as well as brain metastases. He also runs Phase I and II clinical trials testing experimental therapeutics at Yale, which are largely based on discoveries from his own laboratory. His academic research has received international attention with major clinical implications, and he is regarded by many as an emerging leader in the brain tumor space. His laboratory has published findings in multiple high-impact journals, including Science Translational Medicine and Nature Genetics. Ranjit received his undergraduate degree in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University, and both his MD and PhD from the Yale School of Medicine. He completed his medical internship, radiation oncology residency, and postdoctoral research studies at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Peter Glazer, MD, PhD

Chief Medical Advisor &
Scientific co-founder

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Peter Glazer, MD, PhD

Chief Medical Advisor &
Scientific co-founder

Peter is the Hunter Professor and Chairman of the Department of Therapeutic Radiology and Professor of Genetics at Yale. He leads a highly productive program in cancer research, with more than 160 publications and consistent NIH funding for more than 25 years. A primary thrust of his lab has been elucidating the regulation of DNA repair in cancer and developing novel agents to exploit DNA repair pathways for cancer therapy. Peter received a BA in Chemistry from Harvard, an MS in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, and an MD and PhD in Genetics from Yale. He has received awards from the Radiation Research Society, the American Society for Photobiology, and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Peter was elected to the Association of American Physicians in 2014.

Patricia LoRusso, DO

Scientific Advisor

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Patricia LoRusso, DO

Scientific Advisor

Patricia is the Associate Director for Experimental Therapeutics at Yale University. She is also the Principal Investigator of the National Cancer Institute/Clinical Trials Evaluation Program (NCI/CTEP) Early Therapeutics UM1 Grant for Yale University, overseeing four additional NCI-designated Cancer Center UM1 programs. She brings more than 25 years of expertise in medical oncology, drug development, and early-phase clinical trials. Prior to her Yale appointment, she served in numerous leadership roles at Wayne State University’s Barbara Karmanos Cancer Institute, most recently as Director of the Phase I Clinical Trials Program and of the Eisenberg Center for Experimental Therapeutics. Patricia was previously on the Board of Directors for the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) and is currently on the Board of Scientific Council for the NCI Intramural Program.

Ruth Plummer, MD, PhD

Scientific Advisor

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Ruth Plummer, MD, PhD

Scientific Advisor

Ruth is the Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Newcastle University and an honorary consultant medical oncologist in Newcastle Hospitals Foundation Trust. She is Director of the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre within the Northern Centre for Cancer Care, which is a dedicated clinical trials unit. She leads the Newcastle Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre and also the CRUK Newcastle Cancer Centre. Ruth trained at Cambridge and Oxford, obtaining both a medical degree and scientific PhD. Her research interests are in the field of DNA repair and early-phase clinical trials of novel agents or novel imaging targets, taking the first-in-class PARP inhibitor into the clinic in 2003, ATR inhibitor in 2012, and MCT1 inhibitor in 2014.

Leonard Post, PhD

Scientific Advisor

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Leonard Post, PhD

Scientific Advisor

Leonard has more than 30 years of experience with all stages of drug development, from early discovery through FDA approval. He was a Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of LEAD Therapeutics, which was later acquired by BioMarin Pharmaceuticals where he then served as the Chief Scientific Officer. At LEAD and BioMarin, he worked on the discovery and early development of the PARP inhibitor talazoparib. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Research and Development for Onyx Pharmaceuticals from 2000 to 2006. In this role, he was responsible for the co-development of Nexavar through to FDA approval for renal cancer. Leonard received a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is now the Chief Scientific Officer of Vivace Therapeutics, an oncology-focused portfolio-based drug discovery and development company.

Dr. Geoffrey Shapiro, MD, PhD

Scientific Advisor

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Dr. Geoffrey Shapiro, MD, PhD

Scientific Advisor

Geoffrey currently serves as the Director of the Early Drug Development Center, Clinical Director of the Center for DNA Damage and Repair, and an Institute Physician at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. His research focuses on the investigation of the role of cell cycle and DNA repair-related proteins in a variety of solid tumors.He is also a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and serves as the Principal Investigator on the National Cancer Institute/Clinical Trials Evaluation Program (NCI/CTEP) Early Therapeutics UM1 Grant for Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. Geoffrey is a member of the NCI Investigational Drug Steering Committee. He holds PhD and MD degrees from Cornell University, and completed his postgraduate training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Hospital, Boston,followed by a fellowship in medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

board of directors

Kevin Didden

Board Chairman

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Kevin Didden

Board Chairman

Kevin has served as Chairman of the Board at three companies, including Cybrexa. In addition to the successful launch of Cybrexa, Kevin has played a key role in building and successfully financially exiting two biotech companies.The first was CyVera, which was launched in 2003 and then sold to the gene sequencing market leader Illumina in 2005. The second was CyVek, which was launched in 2011 and then sold to Bio-Techne in 2016.Kevin has also spent the last 20 years as the Founder and CEO of CiDRA, a trusted process optimization company to many of the largest companies in the world. He received a BS degree in Business Administration from the University of Connecticut and an MBA from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

John Houston

Board Member

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John Houston

Board Member

Dr. Houston is President and Chief Executive Officer of Arvinas, Inc. Previously, he was the SVP of Specialty Discovery at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). He spent more than 18 years at BMS in roles of increasing responsibility and had accountability for all Discovery Biology disease teams as well as various Discovery technology departments. He was also the site head of the BMS Connecticut facility. Dr. Houston was a member of the BMS R&D Executive Leadership team and chaired the Target Portfolio Committee which had governance oversight in the discovery space. With his teams and research colleagues, he progressed over 200 compounds into early development, several of which advanced into late stage clinical trials, and toward commercialization.  Dr. Houston has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb, he worked at Glaxo Wellcome Research and Development in the UK, where he served as head of the Lead Discovery Unit.

Dr. Houston obtained his B.Sc degree in Medical Microbiology from Glasgow University and obtained his Ph.D. with Professor Brian Catley in Microbial Biochemistry from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. He also completed his post-doctoral studies on an MRC grant with Professor Julia Douglas at Glasgow University.

Per Hellsund

President & CEO

Read Bio

Per Hellsund

President & CEO

Before co-founding Cybrexa, Per was President & CEO of CyVek, where in just over four years he led the development, commercialization, and exit of a novel automated immunoassay system that was acquired by Bio-Techne. Prior to that, he was the President of inc.jet, Inc., a startup that led the introduction of thermal inkjet printing in the commercial printing space. Per has undergraduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Business, and a Master’s Degree in Management from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Kevin Rakin

Board Member

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Kevin Rakin

Board Member

Kevin is Co-founder of HighCape Partners and brings more than 25 years of experience as an executive in the life sciences industry. He most recently served as President of Shire Regenerative Medicine. Prior to joining Shire, Kevin was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Advanced BioHealing from 2007 until its acquisition by Shire in 2011. Before that, he served as an Executive-in-Residence at Canaan Partners. Previously, he was Co-founder, President, and Chief Executive Officer of Genaissance Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly held pharmacogenomics company, until its merger with Clinical Data, Inc. in 2005. He currently serves as a Board Member of Cheetah Medical, Inc. (Chairman), Histogenics Corp., Collagen Matrix, Inc., TELA Bio, Inc., and CURE, Connecticut’s bioscience cluster. Kevin received an MBA from Columbia University and his MS in Finance and BS in Business from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.

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about

about

  • Mission
  • technology
  • team

Technology

Technology

  • technology story
  • targeted impact
  • how it works
  • applications

pipeline

pipeline

  • Development
  • Pipeline Objectives
  • Featured Publications

news

news

  • press releases
  • media coverage
  • events

partners

partners

careers

careers

  • open positions

Contact us

  • legal

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