Massive Bio, a leader in AI-powered cancer clinical trial enrollment, today announced the addition of two executives to its C-suite. Verily veteran Özgür “Oz” Huner joins as Massive Bio’s first Chief Product Officer, and Erkan Terzi has been promoted to Chief Marketing Officer. Both executives will report to CEO and co-founder Selin Kurnaz and work alongside co-founders Chief Medical Officer Arturo Loaiza-Bonilla and Chief Technology Officer and Chief Operating Officer Cagatay Culcuoglu in leading and driving Massive Bio’s product and growth strategy.
Huner and Terzi bring robust leadership experiences and strong legacies of success to the company. Oz brings more than 20 years of experience leading development of clinical and genomics products for cancer research and treatment. His prior roles include Molecular Products Lead at Verily Life Sciences, Alphabet Inc.’s research organization devoted to the study of life sciences, and extensive prior leadership experiences in oncology and genomics solutions at Sema4, QIAGEN, Genomic Health, Lifelabs, NexJ and Deloitte. Oz will lead the development of scalable product management processes to support Massive Bio’s accelerated growth and catalyze development of novel software and data products to enable new opportunities in the clinical trials value chain.
Terzi oversees creative and brand marketing, advertising, public relations, product management, digital marketing, and business intelligence. Erkan has extensive experience in developing and managing innovative marketing programs for many leading brands, including Allianz, Comcast Spotlight, LG Electronics, and Aselsan and has led Massive Bio through a successful growth period. Terzi has also authored several marketing books.
“Our mission is to create hope and empower cancer patients by helping them find the best treatment options, which often requires urgent access to trials,” said Selin Kurnaz, co-founder and CEO of Massive Bio. “This is a monumental point in time where advanced technology is intersecting with medical science to meaningfully change lives. The addition of these highly seasoned experts will be instrumental in pushing the envelope in our mission as we move into 2023 and continue to execute on our strategic priorities.”
The new hires are an outcome of Massive Bio’s latest $16.5 million funding round, which brought the company’s total raise to $23.3 million from its inception. The latest round of investors were Revo Capital, Kenan Turnacioglu, IFC (World Bank), DEG-Deutsche Investitions-und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH, TFS Services, ImpactAssets, and SiteGround Capital. The global nature of their investors helps Massive Bio to capture the global oncology clinical trial enrollment market and further accelerates its multi-country expansion plans.
In addition to the C-suite additions, Massive Bio hired Gretchen O’Neill as Executive Director of Clinical Operations, overseeing program management, client relations, and strategic partnerships. A PPD veteran, O’Neill has extensive experience in patient recruitment and retention, supporting top pharmaceutical and biotech companies, leading a best-in-class project management organization, governance-level client management, and oversight of study service delivery.
“Massive Bio’s strategy and commitment to individuals diagnosed with cancer sets us apart,” O’Neill said. “The care factor for the people we help is unrivaled and it comes from the top down.”
The company also announced the addition of David Henka as Director of Global Strategic Partnerships. Henka will be tasked with expanding Massive Bio’s relationships with payors, self-insured employers, health systems, research networks and other collaborators to provide access to cancer clinical trials from anywhere in the world. Henka served as the Senior Director of Partnerships and Business Development at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, leading cancer screening, awareness, prevention, and High-Risk Surveillance Management (HRSM) for employers and plan sponsors. Henka brings decades of experience consulting with employers and health plan sponsors on a wide range of employee benefit issues, including plan design, benefit strategies, funding, and plan management.
“Oz, Erkan, Gretchen, and David bring proven track records of expertise in building strong product, growth, business and technology teams for market-leading companies in the oncology and clinical research industry, and will enable Massive Bio to continue its hypergrowth towards becoming the leading global AI-powered company in cancer clinical trials,” said Dr. Arturo Loaiza-Bonilla.
Massive Bio recently announced onboarding more than 100,000 patients onto its trial matching platform. Its platform provides cancer patients with relevant clinical trials using AI, empowering patients to find treatment options faster and enabling life sciences companies to conduct broader, more-inclusive, population-based recruitment rather than traditional site-specific recruitment. Massive Bio’s AI technology can improve healthcare access and equity by automatically matching patient data to cancer trial data to enhance the patient experience in ways they could not do before.
Kaynak – TalkCMO