Dr. Sailaja Battula is a Vice President, Research and Development at Ankyra, where she is responsible for bridging the pre-clinical and clinical development of the company’s novel immuno-oncology (IO) drugs to maximize their translation into the clinic.
Prior to Ankyra, she was a Director, IO at Immuneering Corporation where she led multiple projects across various stages of drug discovery. Before Immuneering, Dr. Battula was an Associate Director at Bicycle Therapeutics where she was a Project Lead for the BT7455 (a tumor targeted immune cell agonist) program, while also spearheading early discovery projects leading to the expansion of Bicycle’s IO pipeline. Dr. Battula also held roles of increasing responsibility at Forma Therapeutics with significant experience leading and contributing to various therapeutic programs through lead selection, lead optimization, IND-enabling studies, and IND submissions. Dr. Battula earned her PhD in Pharmacology from New York Medical College. She did her postdoctoral training at University of California, San Francisco where her research work focused on understanding the role of macrophages in mesothelioma chemoresistance.