Dr. Peter Hirth

Dr. Hirth has over 30 years of experience in biotechnology and pharmaceutical discovery and development. He was CEO and co-founder of Plexxikon (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo in 2011), where from 2001 until 2013 he built a novel, structure-guided drug discovery platform which brought several new chemical entities into the clinic, including Zelboraf®, a therapy approved for metastatic melanoma together with a companion diagnostic. Prior, he was President and co-founder of Sugen. The company went public on Nasdaq in 1994 and was acquired by Pharmacia/Pfizer in 1999. From 1991 until 2000, Dr. Hirth was instrumental in building the company from its inception and in advancing several kinase inhibitors through clinical trials in oncology; Sutent®, a drug for the treatment of a type of gastrointestinal cancer, was subsequently approved for human use.

Prior to Sugen, he was Vice President of Research at Boehringer Mannheim, where he successfully led the company’s erythropoietin program to approval in 1989. Dr. Hirth was a research scientist with Max Planck Institute after having completed his post-doctoral work at the University of California, San Diego. He received his PhD in Molecular Genetics from Heidelberg University, Germany.

Dr. Hirth currently serves as the chairman of IO Biotech and as a director on the boards of Iconic Therapeutics, Escient Pharmaceuticals, Vaxcyte, Trex Bio and Aligos Therapeutics.