Synthekine Appoints Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industry Veteran John A. Orwin as Chair of its Board of Directors

MENLO PARK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Synthekine Inc., an engineered cytokine therapeutics company, today announced the appointment of John A. Orwin as Chair of its Board of Directors. Mr. Orwin succeeds Srinivas Akkaraju, M.D., Ph.D., Founder and Managing General Partner at Samsara BioCapital, who has served as Chair since the company’s early days and will continue to serve as an active member of the Board.

“I am thrilled to welcome John as our new Board Chair at this pivotal moment for Synthekine,” said Debanjan Ray, Chief Executive Officer of Synthekine. “His deep operational experience and track record of building successful biotech companies will be instrumental as we enter an exciting new phase of development—most notably the execution of our randomized Phase 2 study for STK‑012 in first-line, PD-L1 negative nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer. I also want to sincerely thank Srini for his leadership and guidance as Chair. We are grateful that he will continue contributing to Synthekine as a member of our Board.”

Mr. Orwin brings more than three decades of leadership in the biopharmaceutical industry, including extensive experience guiding companies through clinical development, commercialization planning, and strategic growth. Mr. Orwin serves on the Board of Directors of Travere Therapeutics, AnaptysBio (Chair), Nested Therapeutics (Chair), Ambrosia Biosciences (Founder & Board Member), and Agni Bio (Exec Chair). He previously served on the Board of Directors of Array BioPharma, Inc., Seagen Inc., and Cargo Therapeutics (Chair). He most recently served as president and CEO of Atreca, Inc., a clinical-stage, public biotechnology company. Prior to this, Mr. Orwin was the CEO of Relypsa, until its acquisition by Galenica, and CEO of Affymax, Inc. He has held leadership roles in marketing, sales, and operations for several leading pharmaceutical companies such as Genentech and Johnson & Johnson, commercializing a range of blockbuster products. Mr. Orwin holds a master’s degree in business administration from New York University and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Rutgers University.

“I am excited to join Synthekine as Board Chair,” said Mr. Orwin. “The company has demonstrated exceptional expertise in engineering cytokines, building a promising clinical stage pipeline, and forging strategic partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies. I’m looking forward to working collaboratively with the Board and the entire organization to help guide Synthekine through its next stage of clinical and corporate growth.”

About Synthekine

Synthekine is harnessing the potential of cytokine therapeutics to develop selective immunotherapies designed to improve the treatment paradigm of cancer and inflammatory disease. Using insights on cytokine structure and function, the company engineers therapeutics designed to unlock the full efficacy potential of cytokines while avoiding their associated toxicities. Synthekine is applying principles of cytokine partial agonism and immunological specificity across multiple therapeutic areas to create a broad and deep pipeline of product candidates. These novel immunotherapies include modified cytokines and surrogate cytokine agonists. For more information, visit www.synthekine.com, and follow us on X @synthekine and LinkedIn.