James (Jim) Appleman, Ph.D., is Chief Scientific Officer, Senior Vice President of R&D, and a cofounder of Primmune Therapeutics. He has more than 30 years of experience in building successful drug discovery organizations and has been an advisor to biotech, hi-tech, and diagnostic firms. Dr. Appleman is the principal scientific innovator behind Primmune’s lead asset, PRTX007, and other immunostimulatory agents in the company’s portfolio. In addition to traditional discovery and nonclinical development, he is responsible for translational sciences essential for PRTX007’s continued progress in clinical development.Dr. Appleman’s entire career has been devoted to the creation of new medicines for the treatment of patients with cancer and serious viral diseases. During the last two decades, much of this effort has been spent in finding ways to engage the innate immune system for therapeutic benefit. As part of this journey, he discovered an unexpectedly complex set of features – almost all counter-intuitive – that must be incorporated into small-molecule agonists of toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) if they are to be used for chronic therapy, particularly in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. These understandings have been rendered into practice, culminating in the discovery and development of PRTX007.Before founding Primmune, Dr. Appleman was a cofounder of eFFECTOR Therapeutics, where he established both the technology base and bioinformatics infrastructure to support eFFECTOR’s unique programs targeting dysregulated mRNA translation. He previously served as Senior Vice President, Research and Chief Scientific Officer at Anadys Pharmaceuticals, where he played a pivotal role in the business process culminating in the acquisition of Anadys by Roche Pharma and in the invention, characterization, and clinical development of the company's internally discovered drug candidates, setrobuvir and ANA773. ANA773 is a novel TLR7 agonist originally intended for the treatment of cancer and hepatic viral diseases.Prior to joining Anadys, Dr. Appleman held positions at Gensia and its subsidiary Metabasis Therapeutics and was a faculty member at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oklahoma State University and completed his postdoctoral training at Dartmouth Medical School. He has authored more than 70 scientific publications, reviews and book chapters. He is an inventor of proprietary technology and a holder of numerous patents.

Debora Dumont co-founded Bioqube Ventures in 2015 and is currently Managing Director. From 2016-2019, Bioqube Ventures co-managed an investment and incubation model resulting in the set-up and support of a local ecosystem of 10 companies on the Janssen R&D site in Beerse, Belgium. In 2020, Bioqube Ventures launched its first independent fund “Bioqube Factory Fund I”.

Previously, Dr. Dumont was head of health and care at LRM, a Belgium-based private equity and venture capital firm. In this position, she served as a board member for several biotech companies and was involved in a series of international venture capital transactions including SEPS Pharma (acquired by Amatsi-Eurofins), Apitope (acquired by Worg Pharma) and XO1 (acquired by Johnson & Johnson).

Dr. Dumont received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Hasselt University and her MSc in Bioscience Engineering from K.U. Leuven.

Dr. Dumont is vice chairman at the Limburg Cancer Foundation.

Tom Heyman is an Operating Partner at Bioqube and strengthens the team by leveraging a highly successful track-record gained during his 37 years at Johnson & Johnson. Most recently, Mr. Heyman served as President of Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc. (JJDC), leading the corporate venture arm of Johnson & Johnson. In this capacity and chairing the JJDC board, he represented the longest-standing corporate venture fund in the life science industry making strategic investments in healthcare for nearly 46 years. Mr. Heyman has also engaged in hundreds of transactions involving both early- and late-stage pharmaceutical products spanning his 25 years in business development. He was responsible for acquiring several key companies for Johnson & Johnson and from 2008 through 2016 he was the CEO of Janssen Pharmaceutica NV in Belgium.

Currently, Mr. Heyman is Member of the Board of imec vzw (Belgium) and Akero Tx (US).

Mr Heyman received a post-graduate degree in Business Management at University of Antwerp, post-graduate degree in International Law at Geneva, Switzerland and a Master of Law at K.U. Leuven.

Charles (Charlie) McDermott has more than 25 years of experience in the life sciences industry and has held roles of increasing responsibility in drug discovery, regulatory affairs, corporate development, commercial planning, and executive management. Most recently Mr. McDermott was President, Chief Business Officer, and a member of the board of directors of Impact Biomedicines, Inc. While at Impact, Mr. McDermott raised more than $110 million in private equity and royalty financing to fully fund the development and commercialization of fedratinib for the treatment of serious hematological malignancies. Impact was acquired by Celgene in 2018 for $1.1 billion upfront and up to $7 billion overall, if all contingent payments are realized. Prior to joining Impact, Mr. McDermott was President and Chief Business Officer of Kala Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mr. McDermott helped lead the transformation of Kala from a private pre-clinical stage company to a pre-commercial stage public company. To this end, Mr. McDermott helped raise ~$190 million via private equity, debt, and an initial public offering. In August of 2018, Kala received NDA approval for Inveltys™, an internally developed drug for ocular indications. Before Joining Kala, Mr. McDermott worked at Allergan as Vice President, Global Business Development for the Eye Care and Drug Delivery business units. At Allergan, Mr. McDermott led efforts to license and acquire a variety of technologies and therapeutics including Lastacaft™, Acuvail™, Restasis® MultiDose™, Latisse™, and Abicipar. Before Joining Allergan, Mr. McDermott was Associate Director of Business Development at deCODE genetics (and before that he worked at Pfizer/Agouron in drug discovery and regulatory affairs. Mr. McDermott currently serves on the Board of Directors for Equillium Bio and is Chairman of the Board of Directors for Anavo Therapeutics.  Mr. McDermott has a B.A. in biochemistry and molecular biology from UC Santa Cruz, a M.A. in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from UC Santa Barbara, and an MBA from the University of San Diego.