Leadership
Tom Dubensky, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Dubensky has served as the CEO of Tempest Therapeutics since joining the company in 2017. He brings significant expertise in the discovery, development and translation of novel immune therapies for the treatment of cancer. Prior to Tempest, Dr. Dubensky served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Aduro Biotech, where he led the development of first-in-class STING (stimulator of interferon genes) agonists. His leadership was instrumental in securing Aduro’s $750M collaboration with Novartis for the STING program. Before his role at Aduro, he served as Chief Scientific Officer of Immune Design, where he was responsible for leading the development of immune therapies based on proprietary molecularly defined adjuvants and dendritic cell-targeting vaccine platforms. Prior to this, in 2007 he co-founded and served as Chief Scientific Officer of Anza Therapeutics, a biotechnology company that was spun out from Cerus Corporation. Dr. Dubensky has also served scientific leadership and strategic roles at Viagene, Chiron Corporation and Onyx Pharmaceuticals. He has co-authored more than 75 scientific papers and is an inventor on 45 issued U.S. patents with multiple pending applications. Dr. Dubensky received his B.A. in Bacteriology and Immunology from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He conducted his post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Pathology.
Stephen Brady
President and Chief Operating Officer
Mr. Brady joined Tempest as president and chief operating officer in September 2019. Most recently, he served as executive vice president, strategy and finance at Immune Design, a biopharmaceutical company that was acquired by Merck in 2019. At Immune Design, Mr. Brady led the general and administrative functions at the company, including strategy, corporate development, finance and investor and public relations, and was instrumental in the company’s successful IPO, financings and eventual sale to Merck. Prior to Immune Design, he held roles of increasing responsibility in multiple biopharmaceutical companies, including as vice president of corporate development at Proteolix, where he had primary responsibility for the company’s business development activities and sale to Onyx Pharmaceuticals.
Sam Whiting, M.D., Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Whiting joined Tempest as executive vice president and chief medical officer in November 2020. Prior to joining Tempest, Dr. Whiting served as senior vice president of clinical development at Calithera Biosciences, a clinical-stage biotech company focused on developing treatments for cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Before Calithera, Dr. Whiting served as vice president of research and clinical development at Gradalis and worked in development of small molecule targeted and immune-oncology agents at VentiRx Pharmaceuticals and Oncothyreon. Prior to joining industry, Dr. Whiting served as assistant professor of medical oncology at the University of Washington, assistant member of clinical research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and clinical head of gastrointestinal oncology at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance. Dr. Whiting completed fellowship training in medical oncology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. His training in internal medicine was through the ABIM Research Pathway at the University of Washington. Dr. Whiting received his B.S. with Honors in Chemistry from Lewis and Clark College and his M.D. and Ph.D. in the Medical Scientist Training Program at the University of Washington.
Chan Whiting, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Research and Development
Dr. Whiting is the Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Tempest. Prior to Tempest, she was Director and Head of Immune Monitoring and Biomarker Development at Aduro Biotech where she established key partnerships, brought in cutting edge technologies and built up a department of highly effective immunologists that was responsible for all clinical immune monitoring and biomarker development efforts for clinical trials at Aduro. She also led the development of Aduro’s personalized medicine program targeting patient-specific neoantigens using Aduro’s attenuated Listeria monocytogenes-based LADD platform. Prior to Aduro, Dr. Whiting has led target identification and validation programs for systems biology companies including Entelos, Inc. and Ingenuity Systems (currently Qiagen) in the development and application of mathematical mechanistic models and other in silico computational tools for autoimmunity, infectious diseases and oncology.
Dr. Whiting received a B.S. degree in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Immunology from University of California, Los Angeles and completed postdoctoral studies at Tularik and Stanford University.
Sharon Sakai, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Regulatory Affairs
Dr. Sakai has held various regulatory positions for over twenty years at several Bay Area biotechnology companies including Avigen, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, and Peninsula Pharmaceuticals. She has extensive experience ranging from numerous IND submissions through NDA and BLA preparation and approval. She joined Transcept Pharmaceuticals in 2005, building the Regulatory department and ultimately rising to Vice President of Regulatory and Quality, leading the company to an NDA approval in 2011. From 2013 to 2015, Dr. Sakai served as Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Adamas Pharmaceuticals. She has consulted for several Bay Area biotech and pharmaceutical companies across multiple therapeutic areas including Neurology, Gastroenterology, Oncology, and Rare Diseases. Client companies have included Aduro, SillaJen, and BioMarin. Dr. Sakai’s early career included Cell Biology research at the NIH as a Senior Staff Fellow and managing virus production facilities at early stage gene therapy companies. Dr. Sakai received a BS in Microbiology from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Anne Moon, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President, Head of Project Team Leadership, Project Management and Portfolio Management
Dr. Moon joins Tempest with over 20 years of industry experience in oncology drug development and brings expertise in leading projects, development science functions and project management. Most recently she was VP, Project Management, at Aduro Biotech where she implemented procedures to support corporate growth and portfolio expansion. Dr. Moon also served as Project Team Leader for Aduro’s Ovarian and Gastric cancer programs. Prior to Aduro, Dr. Moon was a founding member of Jennerex Biotherapeutics (acquired by SillaJen in 2014) where she served as VP, Product Development, with responsibilities that included preclinical development, clinical bioanalytics, and next-generation oncolytic virus research, in addition to leading project management and managing intellectual property filings. Prior to Jennerex, Dr. Moon established the cell-based screening program and managed intellectual property filings at Cytokinetics. Dr. Moon completed post-doctoral training at Onyx Pharmaceuticals within the small molecule therapeutics program targeting small GTPases. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular & Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley and an AB in Biology from Harvard University.