Juha Punnonen, MD, PhD, is a physician scientist with extensive experience as a biotechnology/pharma executive and has a track record in building and managing R&D teams from early-stage research to development in immunology and oncology. He joined Hinge Bio in April 2023 as Chief Development Officer. Previously, he served as Senior Vice President & Head of Oncology at Ascendis Pharma (ASND).  He was a Member of Senior Management Team and coordinated oncology research and pipeline development, advancing two immuno-oncology programs through preclinical research and IND-filings to clinical development. Prior to Ascendis, he was Executive Director and member of the Oncology Leadership Team at Merck & Co., Inc. where he coordinated oncology research and early development programs. At Merck, he was also a member of Product Development Team for Keytruda External Collaborations and Keytruda Risk and Safety Management Team. Prior to that, he was CEO and Co-founder at STATegics Inc., where he was responsible for the company’s R&D and business development activities and was the Principal Investigator on six grant-funded programs. Prior to STATegics, Inc., he was Vice President, R&D and Head of Biology & Pharmacology at Maxygen, Inc. (MAXY), Redwood City, CA. His responsibilities focused on development of molecular evolution/DNA shuffling technologies as well as preclinical and early clinical development of next generation genetic vaccines and protein therapeutics, such as IFN-alpha, G-CSF, Factor VIIa, CTLA4-Ig and TPO agonist protein. Prior to Maxygen, he was a Scientist at DNAX Research Institute (SPG, now Merck Research Labs), Palo Alto, CA, where he also did his post-doctoral training at the Human Immunology Department. His clinical work involved patient care in pediatrics and internal medicine as well as hospital work as a consulting physician in medical microbiology.  He has authored 94 scientific publications and 30 issued US patents, and he received MD and PhD (immunology) degrees from the University of Turku, Finland.