About Us

A fully integrated spectrum of expertise for rational drug discovery

We are an early stage drug discovery and development biotechnology company fueled by a suite of disruptive technologies to advance innovative medicines for the treatment of diseases with high unmet medical need – with an initial internal focus in oncology and immunotherapies.

Orionis Biosciences has research facilities in the Boston area (Headquarters in Waltham, MA, USA) and Ghent (Belgium), and is operated by a world class team of entrepreneurs, scientists and transatlantic network of investors, in concert with strategic research and development collaborations. The latter includes collaborations with VIB (Belgium), Orionis Biosciences co-founding institution.

Senior Leadership and Management

Nikolai Kley, Ph.D.

Nikolai Kley, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer

Niko Kley, co-founder of Orionis, is a biotech executive, entrepreneur and scientist with more than 25 years of dedication to drug discovery and development. His work has a longstanding focus on the design and development of targeted therapeutics through integration of technological innovations.

Prior to Orionis, Niko was a co-founder of FORMA Therapeutics. He has served as an executive and senior scientific leader in drug discovery research and development at various organizations, including FORMA Therapeutics, GPC Biotech, Genome Therapeutics Corporation, and Bristol Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. He was also a Research Professor at the Dept. of Molecular Biology, Princeton University.

Niko completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts General Hospital). He holds a Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute/Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich (Germany) and a BSc.Hon. from Leeds University (UK). Niko received several awards, including the Otto Hahn Medal from the Max Planck Society, and has published over 50 peer reviewed scientific papers and book chapters, as well as co-authored as an inventor numerous patents and applications. Several of his innovations are core to Orionis’ technology platforms.

Riccardo Sabatini, Ph.D.

Riccardo Sabatini, Ph.D.
Chief Data Scientist

Riccardo Sabatini is a renowned scientist and entrepreneur specializing in numerical modeling of complex systems. His areas of expertise are materials and molecular design, computational genomics and predictive health.

Riccardo is co-founder at MIT of the Refugees Action HUB, investment advisor of ENI Next, board member of the Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei, co-founder of the Quantum ESPRESSO Foundation, founding member of Impact HUB Trieste, angel investor and BoA of leading startups working on numerical models applied to health, energy and financial markets. A speaker at international events and conferences, including TED and WEF, past chairman of the I7 Team at G7 for artificial intelligence, author in top ranking scientific journals and co-author as an inventor of numerous patents and applications.

Riccardo was a postdoctoral fellow at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), receiving a Ph.D. in Theory and Numerical Simulation of Condensed Matter from the International School of Advanced Studies (SISSA), MSc.Hon. in Quantum Physics from Trieste University (IT). Previously, he was lead research scientist at Human Longevity and part of the scientific leadership in several projects and companies, including Aiida, Quantum ESPRESSO, FoodCAST, EnerLife, MCA.

Jan Tavernier, Ph.D.

Jan Tavernier, Ph.D.
Chief Technology Officer

Jan Tavernier, co-founder of Orionis, is a technology innovator and expert in the study of structure and function of human cytokines. He is founder and Director of the Cytokine Receptor Laboratory at VIB-Ghent University (Ghent, Belgium). Jan’s scientific research has led to numerous pioneering discoveries in cytokine biology and translational applications. He co-developed the early AcTakine concept, which was part of Orionis’ founding seed technologies, with Prof. Gilles Uze from the CNRS/University of Montpellier.

Over the course of his career, Jan has published more than 300 manuscripts, holds 49 patent applications and is featured in Nature Biotechnology’s 2018 Top 20 list of translational researchers. He served as Department Chair of Biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences and as Co-Director of the VIB Center of Medical Biotechnology. He is also a member of the Royal Academies of Sciences and the Arts of Belgium.

Jan obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1984 on the cloning of interferon and interleukin genes. After an extended stay at Biogen and later at Roche, he returned in 1996 to academia at the VIB Department of Medical Protein Research, Ghent University, where he established and still directs the Cytokine Receptor Laboratory.

Andrew Littlehale, MBA

Andrew Littlehale, MBA
Vice President, Finance

Andy Littlehale is an experienced finance professional who joined Orionis from Macrolide Pharmaceuticals, where he served as Chief Financial Officer. During his tenure at Macrolide, Andy helped lead the company from early stage proof of concept to a development stage organization.

He was responsible for strategic planning and capital creation, and he played a key role in two equity and debt financings as well as the company’s corporate restructuring. Prior to that, Andy held management positions at Synlogic, FORMA Therapeutics and Aeris Therapeutics. During his career, Andy has also served as an advisor to multiple biotech companies in corporate restructuring strategies, including Cocoon Biotech, Kymera Therapeutics, Scholar Rock and Spero Therapeutics. Andy holds a B.A. in Chemistry from Wheaton College and an M.B.A. from Suffolk University.

Robert G. Petit II, PhD

Robert G. Petit II, PhD
Senior Vice President, Early Clinical Development

Dr. Petit is an experienced Immuno-Oncologist, drug developer and an accomplished CMO/CSO executive in public and private sectors. His expertise ranges from translational medicine to early clinical development and regulatory approval. He has been integral to multiple NDA/BLA filings for immunology and oncology products and was notably the US Medical lead for the first checkpoint inhibitor (Yervoy™) while at BMS. He has worked with a broad range of therapeutic modalities, ranging from small molecules to biologics and engineered cells. He has co-authored over 100 patents.

Dr. Petit has been a co-founder of public and private biotech companies, CEO of RGP Biotech Consulting and an advisor/founder to biotech investment fund start-ups. He chairs and has served on Scientific Advisory Boards, Board of Directors, and has had successful development tenures in Academia and at Adria-Pharmacia, Pharmacia Upjohn, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Advaxis Inc., OS Therapies and other Biotech companies.

Robert has a Ph.D. in Immunology and in Viral Oncology with medical training from The Ohio State University College of Medicine. He co-founded an immunotherapy program at St. Luke’s Medical Center focusing on cytokine and adoptive cellular therapy, with an appointment at the University of Wisconsin College of Medicine in pathology and laboratory medicine.

James Kyranos, Ph.D.

James Kyranos, Ph.D.
Vice President, Technical Operations

Jim Kyranos is an experienced biotech executive with extensive expertise in chemical technologies, process development and operations. Jim held executive positions at various biotech companies, and was most recently Vice President, Chemical Technologies at FORMA Therapeutics, where he was also part of the founding management team and where he established multiple chemical technology operating sites in the US and Singapore.

As Vice President of Preclinical Development at Wolfe Laboratories, Jim led scientific and technical operations. As Vice President of Chemical Technologies and as a member of the initial executive team at ArQule, he led the development of ArQule’s high throughput parallel synthesis platform and managed all external collaborations. Prior to that, Jim held leadership positions at BioDevelopment Laboratories and Arthur D. Little. Jim received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Northeastern University and has a B.A. in Chemistry and Biology from Boston University.

Edward Suh, Ph.D.

Edward Suh, Ph.D.
Vice President, Chemistry

Edward (Ted) Suh is an experienced pharma executive and medicinal chemist with over 25 years of dedication to drug discovery. Beginning his career at Glaxo, Ted helped advance programs in inflammation, obesity and diabetes. At Eisai, he held increasing positions of responsibility, including building and leading a multidisciplinary lead finding department that improved project throughput and discovery efficiency.

In this role, Ted also established successful collaborations with outside partners to create new opportunities for drug discovery. Primarily focused on lead discovery and early optimization, with extensive experience in natural product-based drug discovery, Ted has initiated and contributed to projects that have identified clinical candidates in the areas of oncology, obesity and immunology. Ted received a B.A. in Chemistry from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Harvard University.

Erik Depla, Ph.D.

Erik Depla, Ph.D.
Director, Biology

Erik Depla is a scientist, project leader and team manager with years of experience in the design and development of protein-based therapeutics (biologics). He has made substantial contributions to the development of Orionis’ biologics platform.

Prior to joining Orionis, Erik was an Expert of Discovery Biology at VIB, Senior Project Manager at Ablynx and Project Manager at Innogenetics, leading biologics projects from discovery to clinical phase II. He is named as an inventor on more than 40 published patent families and has co-authored over 40 peer reviewed publications. Erik received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium).

Sam Lievens, Ph.D.

Sam Lievens, Ph.D.
Director, Biology

Sam Lievens is an experienced scientist, project leader and team manager with years of dedication to the development of molecular interaction technologies and chemical biology applications. Sam has made substantial contributions to the development and operations of Orionis’ high throughput chemical biology platform.

He joined Orionis from the Cytokine Receptor Laboratory in Ghent where he worked as project leader on multiple large-scale protein-protein interaction mapping projects and where, as Technology and Business Development Manager, he was involved in advancing and scaling throughput of molecular interaction screening technologies. Sam carried out postdoctoral research on cytokine receptor biology at VIB and Ghent University (Belgium), co-authoring over 50 scientific publications over the course of his career. Sam has an M.S. in Bioscience Engineering and his Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Ghent University.

Board of directors

Nikolai Kley, Ph.D.

Nikolai Kley, Ph.D.

Niko Kley, Co-Founder, President and CEO, Orionis Biosciences, is a biotech executive, entrepreneur and scientist with more than 25 years of dedication to drug discovery and development. His work has a longstanding focus on the design and development of targeted therapeutics through integration of technological innovations.

Niko completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School (Massachusetts General Hospital). He holds a Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute/Ludwig-Maximillians-University in Munich (Germany) and a BSc.Hon. from Leeds University (UK). Niko received several awards, including the Otto Hahn Medal from the Max Planck Society, and has published over 50 peer reviewed scientific papers and book chapters, as well as co-authored as an inventor numerous patents and applications. Several of his innovations are core to Orionis’ technology platforms.

Bihua Chen

Bihua Chen

Bihua Chen is the founder of Cormorant Asset Management, LP (“Cormorant”), an investment firm focused on innovative biotech, medtech and life science companies with approximately $2.3b assets under management. Ms. Chen manages Cormorant’s public fund as well as its private funds. Prior to founding Cormorant, Ms. Chen managed a separately managed account focused on the healthcare sector as a sub-adviser to a large, multi-strategy hedge fund based in New York. Ms. Chen obtained an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a Master of Science, Molecular Biology, from the Graduate School of Biomedical Science at Cornell Medical College. Ms. Chen also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Genetics and Genetic Engineering from Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Griet Vanpoucke, Ph.D.

Griet Vanpoucke, Ph.D.

Griet Vanpoucke, is Head of New Ventures at VIB, the leading life science focused research institute in Belgium. Griet’s team translates exciting science from the research institute into successful novel ventures. She currently also serves as non-executive Director on the Board of Aelin Therapeutics, Montis Biosciences and Flamingo Therapeutics. Previously, Griet was part of Pronota, a biomarker discovery and diagnostics start-up company. As Director of R&D, she was responsible for several internal and partnered biomarker discovery programs.

She played a leading role in the company’s transformation from a proteomics discovery company to a diagnostic product company until the company was acquired in 2014. She holds a Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Ghent University (Belgium) and did a postdoc at the MRC in Edinburgh, UK.

Matias de Tezanos

Matias de Tezanos

Matias de Tezanos is a successful entrepreneur, serving as Founder and CEO of three fast growing technology companies from startup until they were acquired by publicly traded companies. Matias was honored as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2009. He was also named by INC 500 as one of the Top 10 Hispanic entrepreneurs in the United States during 2011 and 2012. Since 2014, he is an active technology venture investor.

An active YPO member, currently serving as Chairman and CEO of PeopleFund – a venture investment group focused on disruptive and scalable technologies. Several of his early stage investments are now at scale and transforming a variety of industries, including healthcare, materials, mobility, semiconductors, biotech, among others. Matias grew up in Latin America and the United States and now lives in Tokyo.

Steve Gullans, Ph.D.

Steve Gullans, Ph.D.

Steve Gullans is an experienced biotech executive, venture investor, scientist, entrepreneur and author. Most recently, he served as President and CEO of Gemphire Therapeutics. Previously, he was Co-Founder and Managing Director at Excel Venture Management where he led many life science company financings. He has held executive and board director positions in a number of private and public companies and currently sits on the board of NeuroBo Pharmaceuticals.

Steve loves innovation and has spoken widely on the topic, including at TED, TEDMED and TEDx. He co-authored Evolving Ourselves, a book that provides a sweeping tour of how humans are changing the course of evolution. Steve began his career as a professor at Harvard Medical School where he published more than 130 scientific papers and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

About Us

A fully integrated spectrum of expertise for rational drug discovery

Senior Leadership and Management

Nikolai Kley, Ph.D.

Riccardo Sabatini, Ph.D.

Jan Tavernier, Ph.D.

Andrew Littlehale, MBA

Robert G. Petit II, PhD

James Kyranos, Ph.D.

Edward Suh, Ph.D.

Erik Depla, Ph.D.

Sam Lievens, Ph.D.

Board of directors

Nikolai Kley, Ph.D.

Bihua Chen

Griet Vanpoucke, Ph.D.

Matias de Tezanos

Steve Gullans, Ph.D.

US Office

Belgium Office

Belgium Office