About

Aetna Wun Trombley, Ph.D., has served as President, Chief Executive Officer, and a member of Lycia’s board of directors since April 2020. She also served as an independent director of Carmot Therapeutics from 2016 until its acquisition by Roche in 2024. Prior to joining Lycia, Aetna was President and Chief Operating Officer of NGM Biopharmaceuticals, where she had broad strategic and operational responsibilities for nine years. At NGM, she was instrumental in establishing multiple strategic partnerships and a successful initial public offering in 2019. Previously, she served as Chief of Staff for the Chief Executive Officer of Novartis and was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. She received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from MIT.

Steve Staben, Ph.D., joined Lycia Therapeutics as Chief Scientific Officer in October 2021. Prior to Lycia, he spent over 14 years at Genentech, leading drug discovery programs in oncology and immunology as well as new modality platforms. His basic research interests include new mechanisms for the modulation of therapeutic targets, including applications of induced proximity. He has co-authored over 70 peer-reviewed articles and patent applications. Steve holds his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sofia Touami, Ph.D., joined Lycia as Chief Business Officer in July 2023. Prior to Lycia, she was Chief Business Officer at Hexagon Bio, responsible for strategic planning, business development, and corporate operations. Previously, she served as Vice President of Business Development at Frontier Medicines, where she led business operations and transactions, including the company’s global strategic collaboration with AbbVie. Before joining Frontier, Sofia was Senior Director of Business Development and Alliance Management at NGM Biopharmaceuticals, where she negotiated and managed multiple partnerships with academic, non-profit, and industry partners. Sofia received an A.B. in Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis, a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University, and completed postdoctoral studies at The Scripps Research Institute.

Jian Cao, Ph.D., serves as Vice President of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC). Prior to Lycia, he served as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development at Invectys, Inc., a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company where he led all CMC and IND-enabling studies on CAR-T cell therapy, monoclonal antibody, nanobody, and DNA cancer vaccine development. Before joining Invectys, Jian was the Acting General Manager for Alvotech & CCHT Biopharmaceuticals Inc., where he led cGMP manufacturing including process development, manufacturing, QA, QC, regulatory affairs, preclinical, and clinical development. Prior to that, he worked at Sorrento Therapeutics and was responsible for multiple antibody drug development programs. Jian received his B.S. in Applied Chemistry and his M.S. in Polymer Chemistry from Jilin University in Changchun, China. He received his Ph.D. in Protein Biochemistry from the University of New Mexico and completed his postdoctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego.

Winsome Chung joined Lycia Therapeutics as Vice President, Finance in May 2022. She has over 20 years of finance, accounting and business operations experience in private and publicly-traded companies across multiple industries including early- to late-stage life science companies. Before joining Lycia, she served as Head of Financial Planning and Analysis at ArsenalBio where she led the corporate and strategic planning function. Prior to ArsenalBio, Winsome held multiple roles at NGM Biopharmaceuticals where she served as Controller as well as Executive Director of FP&A. During her tenure there, she built out and scaled the accounting and finance functions and supported the company’s initial public offering. Winsome holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.

Darrin Lindhout, Ph.D. joined Lycia in September 2020 and is Lycia’s Executive Director, Head of Biologics, providing leadership for biologics and discovery research efforts. He was most recently Director, Protein Sciences at NGM Biopharmaceuticals, where he spent over 11 years building their biologics capabilities. While at NGM, he directly contributed to seven IND candidates and was involved in protein engineering and research processes spanning metabolic, oncology, and ophthalmology indications, resulting in more than 20 granted patents pertaining to protein structure/function. Prior to NGM, Darrin completed his postdoctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine in the Department of Structural Biology in 2008 and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Alberta in 2005.

Sarah McWhirter, Ph.D. serves as Vice President, Head of Biology at Lycia Therapeutics. Prior to Lycia, she served as Executive Director of Research and Translational Medicine at Aduro Biotech. At Aduro, Sarah was promoted into roles of increasing responsibility where she was the primary R&D lead for the Novartis partnership developing STING agonists for oncology that led to a first-in-human STING agonist. She and her team also spearheaded discovery efforts that enabled a research collaboration and licensing agreement with Eli Lilly to develop therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Prior to Aduro, Sarah supervised research activities in Dr. Mark Schlissel’s laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Sarah earned her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and conducted a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University in the laboratory of Dr. Tom Maniatis.

Larry Rozsnyai, Ph.D., serves as Vice President of Intellectual Property. Prior to Lycia, he served as Vice President of IP, Licensing and Transactions at Olema Pharmaceuticals, Vice President of IP at Myovant Sciences, and Senior Counsel, Intellectual Property at Gilead. Larry has built patent portfolios supporting multiple commercial products, defended patents from third-party oppositions in Europe, India, and other countries, negotiated and closed research and commercial license agreements, and led other strategic initiatives. Larry received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, performed postdoctoral research at Harvard University, and received his J.D. from the University of Washington.

Nadia Tchao, M.D. serves as Executive Director, Head of Translational Medicine/Early Development at Lycia. Nadia has over 17 years of experience leading cross-functional teams to develop innovative clinical development strategies for new drug candidates across a broad range of inflammation indications. She has worked across diverse therapeutic modalities and served as the translational medicine representative on targets from early-stage research to late-stage development. Most recently, she was a Medical Director of Early Development, Inflammation at Amgen for over seven years, during which time she led the development of multiple early assets from IND filing through proof-of-concept studies. Nadia earned a BS in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.D. from Duke University. She completed her Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a Pulmonary Critical Care Fellowship at the University of California San Francisco, where she was an Associate Professor prior to joining industry.

Jay Tibbitts joined Lycia Therapeutics as Head of Nonclinical Development in October 2024. Prior to joining Lycia, he led Nonclinical PKPD organizations at Abbvie, UCB, and Genentech and led Nonclinical Development at Surrozen, Inc. As Project Leader, Jay successfully guided Surrozen’s lead program, SZN-043, into clinical development. Jay has dedicated much of his career to the quantitative pharmacology and development of both small and large molecule drugs across multiple indications; and has contributed to the filing of more than 20 INDs and several BLAs. Jay received his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of California, San Francisco and a D.V.M. from Ohio State University.