Kronos Bio has added Yasir Al-Wakeel to its senior management team as chief financial officer and head of corporate development, a newly created role.
Al-Wakeel most recently served as chief financial and strategy officer at Neon Therapeutics, which was acquired this year by Mainz, Germany-based BioNTech (NASDAQ: [[ticker:BNTX]]). Previously he held the role of CFO and head of corporate development at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Ipsen. Prior to joining industry, Al-Wakeel—a physician by training—worked in equity research and corporate finance at Credit Suisse.
Privately held Kronos, which is headquartered in San Mateo, CA, and operates a research site in Cambridge, MA, is developing cancer drugs that aim to hit molecular targets historically considered undruggable. The company plans to start pivotal trials of its lead program in patients with acute myeloid leukemia in 2021.
