Umesh Muchhal, Ph.D.

Umesh Muchhal, Ph.D is an accomplished drug development executive with 25+ years of experience building therapeutics, pipelines, teams and processes that allow their successful journey to clinic and beyond. He has been a key contributor driving development of 20+ clinical stage biologics including engineered antibodies, bi-specifics, Fc-fusions and other modalities for oncology, immunology and musculoskeletal indications. Currently he serves as a therapeutic development advisor for multiple start-ups, VCs and research organizations. More recently he was CSO at a stealth biotech leading transformation of novel biology to therapeutic, along with fundraising and company build up. Prior to this role he led and built the team developing the IgM platform and therapeutics based on novel engineering strategies as SVP of Antibody Sciences at IGM Biosciences. The two decades spent at Xencor before this were instrumental in building the core design, discovery, optimization, preclinical and CMC development skills along with the organizational, scientific and strategic acumen to help convert engineering platform into a robust pipeline of 15+ clinical biologics. His biotechnology journey started at Maxygen, a directed evolution powerhouse.