John W. Park, MD has held the title of President and CEO of Hermes Biosciences since 1998 and was one of the original founders of the company.  He is also the Director of Novel Therapeutics in Breast Oncology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Comprehensive Cancer and Co-Director of the UCSF Breast SPORE program. Dr. Park is also Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine and Principal Investigator in the UCSF Neuro-Oncology Program. 

Dr. Park received his AB in biochemical sciences from Harvard College, and his MD from Stanford University School of Medicine. He received further training in Internal Medicine at UCLA Medical Center and in Hematology-Oncology at UCSF Medical Center.

Dr. Park’s major research interests include novel targeted therapies of cancer, monoclonal antibody therapy, liposome- and nanoparticle-based drug delivery, and metastasis and micrometastasis.  

Dr. Park has been the recipient of multiple honors and awards, including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Young Investigator Award and the Career Development Award from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program.

Dr. Park’s research has been extensively published, including leading journals such as Science, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (PNAS), Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, Oncogene, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Biochemistry, Biochim. Biophys. Acta (BBA), Journal of Cell Science, Cytometry, Advances in Pharmacology, Biochemical Pharmacology, Biotechnology Progress, Journal of Controlled Release, Seminars in Oncology, Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, Breast Cancer Researach, Journal of NeuroOncology, Cancer, The Cancer Journal, and Annals of Internal Medicine.

In addition to his academic position, Dr. Park has extensive experience in biotechnology and drug development. Dr. Park was a postdoctoral fellow and Visiting Scientist at Genentech, Inc. from 1990 to 1995, where his research involved studies of heregulin, HER2, and the anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody trastuzumab (Herceptin®). Dr. Park was also the chief clinical adviser to Canji, Inc. from 1993 to 1996, when it was acquired by Schering-Plough. At Canji, Dr. Park helped launch its clinical programs in adenovirus-p53 gene therapy. Dr. Park was also a co-founder of NewBiotics, Inc., a drug discovery company in San Diego, CA.

E-mail: jpark@hermesbio.com

Dmitri B. Kirpotin, Ph.D., Vice President of Pharmaceutical Research and Development

Dr. Dmitri Kirpotin received his M.S. in chemistry from the Department of Enzymology, Lomonosov State University in Moscow, Russia, and in 1983 received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the A. N. Bach Institute of Biochemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, where he pioneered self-assembled polyelectrolyte systems for targeted drug and enzyme delivery.

In 1992-1995, Dr. Kirpotin continued his research at the University of California, Davis, where he studied photochemical energy generation in liposomes, and then at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where he developed magnetically controlled vectors for drug delivery and tumor hyperthermia, as well as novel lipid vectors for gene and oligonucleotide delivery to lung tumors.

Later Dr. Kirpotin held research positions at the University of California, San Francisco and California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, California, in the Liposome Research Laboratory under the mentorship of Demetrios Papahadjopoulos, a renowned pioneer in the flield of liposomes.  There Dr. Kirpotin's research focused on the design of receptor-targeted immunoliposomes, novel liposome-protein conjugation methods, target-sensitive liposomes, drug encapsulation methods, and liposome targeting to tumors by physical factors, such as hyperthermia.

In 2004 Dr. Kirpotin joined Hermes Biosciences' management team full time as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Research and Development. Dr. Dmitri Kirpotin is one of the principal founders of the company and brings considerable hands-on experience in the discovery and development of advanced drug delivery techniques, in particular, in the field of targeted pharmaceutical liposomes and nanoparticles. 

Dr. Kirpotin has been a consultant for several biotech companies specializing in targeted drug delivery.  He authored more than 60 peer reviewed publications on liposomes and drug delivery technologies, and holds numerous patents in this area.

Phone:  (650)873-2583 x106
E-mail: dkirpo@hermesbio.com

Christopher C. Benz, M.D - Vice President of Clinical Development & Affairs

Dr. Benz holds the position of Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Hermes Biosciences and was a member of Hermes Founding Team.  Dr. Benz is also Professor and Director of the Cancer and Developmental Therapeutics Program at the Buck Institute for Age Research and Adjunct Professor of Medicine in the Division of Oncology/Hematology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Dr. Benz received his M.D. from the University of Michigan. Dr. Benz previously held a faculty appointment at Yale University School of Medicine until 1983, when he joined the UCSF faculties of Medicine, Molecular Medicine, and the Joint UCB/UCSF Bioengineering Program. His more than two decades of NCI-sponsored laboratory research have focused on molecular strategies to improve cancer diagnostics and therapy; in particular, his research efforts have focused on defining critical receptor systems (such as HER2) involved in human tumorigenesis, and developing novel therapeutic strategies to specifically target these receptor systems.

Dr. Benz was a longstanding member of the UC Systemwide Executive Committee for Biotechnology Research and Education, and in that capacity was instrumental in establishing the statewide BioStar research funding mechanism to foster academic-industrial partnerships in the state of California. He was a founding member of the executive council for the California Breast Cancer Research Program, and currently serves on the breast cancer scientific advisory board and steering committee for the Marin County Department of Health and Human Services.

Dr. Benz also serves as an external advisor in oncology for several major pharmaceutical companies, on the scientific advisory board of selected biotechnology companies, and is on the board of directors for an international non-profit tumor banking foundation.

E-mail: cbenz@hermesbio.com

James D. Marks, M.D, Ph.D., Vice President-Antibody Discovery      

Dr. Marks holds the title of Vice President of Antibody Discovery at Hermes and is one of Hermes Founding Team.  He is also Professor of Anesthesia and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Dr. Marks received his undergraduate degree at the University of California at Berkeley, his M.D. from the UCSF School of Medicine, and Ph.D. from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB) in Cambridge, England.

While a graduate student in the laboratory of Dr. Greg Winter at the MRC-LMB, Marks pioneered antibody phage display technology and the use of non-immune phage libraries to generate human antibody fragments to any target antigen.

Dr. Marks continues to be a leader in antibody engineering, including pioneering work in developing phage-based in vitro antibody affinity maturation methods. Other achievements include development of methods to generate anti-tumor antibodies by direct selection on tumor cell lines, and the first isolation of phage antibodies against cell surface receptors using direct selection on cells. This work has been extended to methods to select anti-tumor antibodies capable of triggering receptor mediated endocytosis in cells and other novel screens to identify internalizing antibodies.

E-mail: marksjd@hermesbio.com

Daryl C. Drummond, Ph.D., Director of Liposome Research

Dr. Drummond joined Hermes in 2000 and is now the Director of Liposome Research and Development at Hermes Biosciences. 

He earned is Ph.D. in Chemistry at Indiana University where he studied membrane biochemistry and biophysics.  He later became a postdoctoral fellow at California Pacific Medical Center under the guidance of Demetrios Papahadjopoulos.  Following completion of his postdoctoral work and Dr. Papahadjopoulos passing, Dr. Drummond worked together with Dr. Dmitri Kirpotin and Dr. Keelung Hong to direct the research efforts in Dr. Papahadjopoulos’ academic laboratory, the Liposome Research Laboratory, at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.  

In 2000 he became the first scientist hired by Hermes Biosciences and quickly rose to the position of Director of Liposome Research, where he currently directs the liposomal/immunoliposomal therapeutic research and development efforts at Hermes. 

His experience includes the formulation of a broad range of therapeutic agents, including both small molecular weight drugs and nucleic acid-based therapeutics, GMP manufacturing of both liposomal therapeutics and human scFv antibody-PEG-lipid conjugates, conjugation or formulation of novel imaging agents, and the development of strategies for modulating the efficiency of in vivo drug delivery for liposomal therapeutics.  

Phone:  (650) 873-2583 x109
E-mail: drummond@hermesbio.com

Dr. Hong was a member of the original Hermes Founding Team and was Chief Scientific Officer at Hermes from 1998-2004.  He earned a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University.

More than 20 years ago he joined the Liposome Research Laboratory of Demetrios Papahadjopoulos at the University of California at San Francisco, and later at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, where he helped lead the research efforts even after Dr. Papahadjopoulos passing in 1998.  

He has been a consultant to several biotechnology companies, including Nycomed, Salutar, Onyx, and Sequus. Dr. Hong did pioneering research on the functional reconstitution of biomembranes, and has contributed significantly to understanding the interaction of membrane proteins with the lipid bilayer. He has been the primary inventor of several important methodologies for unequivocally identifying the pathways of liposome-cell interactions, and has designed novel and stable formulations of non-viral vectors of nucleic-acid delivery for in vivo applications.

Dr. Hong has been the operations leader of LRL since the 1990’s, serving as the primary mentor for many LRL postdoctoral fellows, and is author of over 100 publications in the areas of lipid membrane biophysics, membrane fusion, liposome technology, drug and gene delivery. His industry experience includes preclinical development and process sciences involving liposomal agents for diagnosis, detection, treatment, and prevention of cancers. Dr. Hong is also a founder and CEO of Taiwan Liposome Company, Inc., a Hermes' Asian development partner.