Management Team
Our management team is comprised of experienced executives with long track records of success in the development of pharmaceuticals, biotechnology drugs and medical devices.
David Hung, M.D.
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Hung founded Nuvation Bio in 2018 and serves as President and Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors.
Dr. Hung founded Medivation, Inc., in 2003, raising a total of $433 million in public offerings over the life of the company to reach a market cap of more than $14 billion, providing investors with a return on investment of 21,000%. In 2016, Medivation was sold to Pfizer for $14.3 billion in an all-cash deal, one of the largest biopharma sales ever by a founding Chief Executive Officer. For his role in creating Medivation, Dr. Hung was named the Life Sciences category winner and Overall U.S. winner across all categories of the 2014 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
Dr. Hung identified, in-licensed and led bench-to-bedside development of enzalutamide (XTANDI®) for advanced prostate cancer. At Medivation, XTANDI was taken from first in vitro laboratory experiment to FDA approval in seven years, one of the fastest development timelines in pharmaceutical history. XTANDI, approved in 60+ countries, reached blockbuster drug status, exceeding $3.7 billion in global annual sales in 2019.
At Medivation, Dr. Hung identified, in-licensed and developed talazoparib, a potentially best-in-class PARP inhibitor, which was approved by the FDA in October 2018, and the immune-oncology agent, pidilizumab, which demonstrated robust effects in Phase 2 studies and is now a promising Phase 3-ready asset.
Between Medivation and founding Nuvation Bio, Dr. Hung served for 10 months as Chief Executive Officer at Axovant Sciences before tendering his resignation. Prior to founding Medivation, he served as President and Chief Executive Officer of ProDuct Health, Inc., a venture-backed startup medical device company founded in 1998 that developed, manufactured and commercialized a breast microcatheter – that he invented – for breast cancer risk assessment. ProDuct Health was acquired in 2001 for $168 million by Cytyc Corporation.
Dr. Hung received an A.B. summa cum laude in biology from Harvard College and an M.D. Alpha Omega Alpha from the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine. He completed simultaneous clinical fellowships in hematology, oncology and transfusion medicine as well as two basic science research fellowships in molecular biology at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine.
Jennifer Fox
Chief Financial Officer
Ms. Fox joined Nuvation Bio in 2020. She has more than 25 years of experience in healthcare investment banking and has been a lead adviser to life sciences companies on over 125 financing and strategic transactions. She joined the company from Citigroup, where she most recently served as a managing director and Co-Head of North America Healthcare Corporate and Investment Banking Group. Prior to CitiGroup, Ms. Fox held senior positions in investment banking at Deutsche Bank, Bear Stearns, Bank of America and Prudential Securities. She holds B.S. degrees in finance and marketing from Manhattan College.
David Liu, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Liu joined Nuvation Bio in 2022 with over 20 years of experience leading the discovery and development of oncology therapies, including NDA submissions for multiple oncology assets in the U.S., Europe, and China. Most recently, Dr. Liu served as the Chief Medical Officer at a biotechnology company based in Shanghai, China. There, he built and led their clinical R&D organization, including global clinical research, global clinical operations, pharmacovigilance, biostatistics, programming and data management, clinical pharmacology, and drug supply.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Liu held several roles of increasing strategic responsibility at Bristol Myers Squibb, where he became a leader in Oncology Global Clinical Research, including leading the Global Prostate Cancer Program, Pediatric Clinical Development, and Translational Research for ipilimumab, and development of nivolumab and ipilimumab for China. After Bristol Myers Squibb, Dr. Liu was the Global Lead Physician at Celgene for the revlimid plus rituximab submission program in indolent lymphoma. Dr. Liu earned a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an M.S. from the University of Toledo, and an M.D. from Beijing Medical University (Peking University School of Medicine).
David Hanley, Ph.D.
Chief Technical Operations Officer
Dr. Hanley joined Nuvation Bio in 2021, bringing 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience driving strategy for technical operations and chemistry manufacturing and controls (CMC), including virtual networks, for drug development, manufacturing and distribution in the U.S. and worldwide. He holds diverse disease expertise, including oncology, central nervous system (CNS) and autoimmune, and product types, including biologics, small molecule therapies, cell therapies and synthetic peptide products.
Dr. Hanley most recently served as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Pharmaceutical Development and Operations at BioXcel Therapeutics, where he led strategy and execution for CMC development, end-to-end supply chain and external supply manufacturing. Prior, Dr. Hanley held positions at Radius Health, Inc., including Vice President of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technical Operations. There, he led the end-to-end supply chain, including for CMC development, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) New Drug Application (NDA) and FDA-approved product launch. Dr. Hanley also held leadership positions at The Medicines Company, including Senior Director of Global Pharmaceutical Development, and project management and scientific positions at Medarex and Berlex, a subsidiary of Schering AG, at the start of his career.
Dr. Hanley earned his Ph.D. in Physical and Analytical Chemistry from the University of Utah and his B.S. in Chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Gary Hattersley, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Hattersley joined Nuvation Bio in 2019 following a 15-year career at Radius Health Inc, where he supported the development of its oncology and women’s health portfolio, including TYMLOS®, approved by the FDA in 2017 for the treatment of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis at high risk of fracture. At Radius Health, Dr. Hattersley held roles of increasing seniority, including Chief Scientific Officer, Senior Vice President of Preclinical Development, and Vice President of Biology. Prior to Radius Health, Dr. Hattersley was a Senior Scientist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he had responsibility for the discovery and development of novel small molecule agents for the treatment of metabolic bone diseases. He also held positions at Genetics Institute investigating the application of the bone morphogenetic proteins in musculoskeletal disease. Dr. Hattersley received a Ph.D. from St. George’s Hospital Medical School in London.
Stacy Markel
Chief People Officer
Ms. Markel joined Nuvation Bio in 2019. Previously, she served as Executive Vice President, Human Resources, at Rigel Pharmaceuticals, working collaboratively with the CEO and Executive Committee to support the successful evolution of the company from R&D to commercial stage. Prior to that role, Ms. Markel served as Senior Vice President of Human Resources at Portola Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where she helped successfully transition the company from a development-stage company to a commercial-stage company, preparing the organization for the launch of its first marketed product. Prior to Portola, Ms. Markel served as Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Professional Development at Actelion Pharmaceuticals, Ltd., where she was a member of the Executive Leadership Team and Global Human Resources Leadership Team. She was instrumental in the growth of the organization and in positioning culture as a key advantage in attracting and retaining talent. Ms. Markel has over 25 years of business experience in the pharmaceutical/biotechnology industry. She began her career in sales and sales management with Roche Laboratories. Ms. Markel earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Davis.
Kerry Wentworth
Chief Regulatory Officer
Ms. Wentworth joined Nuvation Bio in 2022 with over 25 years of experience in both domestic and international Regulatory and Quality Affairs. Her background spans early and late development across multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, osteoarthritis, pain management, autoimmune and rare diseases. She also comes to Nuvation Bio with a broad scope of product knowledge ranging from injectable small molecules to complex autologous platforms.
Ms. Wentworth most recently served as Chief Regulatory Officer for Flexion Therapeutics, which was acquired by Pacira Biosciences in 2021, where she was in an executive leadership role responsible for setting and delivering on regulatory and quality strategies across their product portfolio. Most notably, Ms. Wentworth was instrumental in leading the company’s first NDA successfully through the FDA approval process and into commercialization. Prior to joining Flexion, Ms. Wentworth served as Vice President, Clinical, Regulatory and Quality at Agenus, Inc., where she was responsible for leading all global regulatory and clinical development efforts. Previously, Ms. Wentworth led the Regulatory and Quality function for Genelabs Technologies, Inc. and prior to that held positions of increasing responsibility within Regulatory Affairs at Genzyme. Ms. Wentworth holds a BS in pre-veterinary medicine from the University of New Hampshire.
Sergey Yurasov, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Yurasov joined Nuvation Bio in 2019. He is a board-certified, U.S.-licensed hematologist/oncologist with more than 20 years of experience in immunology and oncology. Prior to Nuvation, Dr. Yurasov served as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development and Chief Medical Officer at Immune Design (acquired by Merck in April 2019), where he oversaw clinical, regulatory, pharmacovigilance and medical affairs. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development at Clovis Oncology, where he oversaw all clinical activities for its rociletinib, rucaparib and lucitanib programs, as well as regulatory approval and launch support for rociletinib and rucaparib. Prior to Clovis, Dr. Yurasov served as Associate Vice President, Global Medicine Science, at ImClone Systems, a subsidiary of Eli Lilly & Co., where he led the development of ramucirumab, which culminated in a FDA submission for an indication in second-line non-small cell lung cancer.
He also served at Hoffman-La Roche as Clinical Director of Oncology, Pharma Research and Early Development. Prior to his industry experience, Dr. Yurasov was Assistant Professor of Clinical Investigation at Rockefeller University, where he was the principal investigator for NIH-funded translational immunology research, and Clinical Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he was an attending physician. Dr. Yurasov received an M.D. from the Russian State Medical University and a Ph.D. in medical sciences from the Research Institute for Pediatric Oncology in Moscow. He completed his residency in general pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Jacobi Medical Center and his subspecialty training in pediatric hematology/oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center while serving as a research fellow at The Rockefeller University.
