Board of Directors

Dr. Dukes joined the Iovance Board of Directors and was appointed Chairman of the Board in August 2016. Dr. Dukes is a Venture Partner at OrbiMed Advisors. He previously served as Senior Vice President and Head of Business Development and Licensing for Merck Research Laboratories. Prior to joining Merck, Dr. Dukes was Vice President of External Research and Development at Amgen. He has also served as President and Chief Executive Officer, as well as a member of the Board of Directors of Essentialis Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the development of breakthrough medicines for the treatment of rare metabolic diseases. Previously, Dr. Dukes was Vice President of Scientific and Technology Licensing at GlaxoSmithKline, and he held various positions at Glaxo Wellcome, including Head of Exploratory Development for Metabolic and Urogenital Diseases and Head of Ion Channel Drug Discovery Group. Dr. Dukes serves on the Board of Directors of Themis Biosciences, Ikena Oncology, KaNDy Therapeutics (previously as Chairman), NeRRe Therapeutics, ReViral Limited and ENYO Therapeutics. Dr. Dukes co-founded and is the former Chief Executive Officer of Theseus Pharmaceuticals. He also co-founded and serves on the Board of Directors of Kartos Therapeutics, and co-founded Telios Pharma, where he serves as President. He holds an M.J. and D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, an M.S. in Cardiovascular Studies from the University of Leeds, and a B.S. in Pharmacology from the University of Bath.

Dr. Countouriotis is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Avenzo Therapeutics, a private biotechnology company focused on oncology. Previously she was the President and Chief Executive Officer and a board member of Turning Point Therapeutics from 2018 until it was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb in August 2022. Dr. Countouriotis has also served as the Chief Medical Officer for multiple public biotechnology companies, including Adverum Biotechnologies, Halozyme Therapeutics and Ambit Biosciences. Earlier in her career, Dr. Countouriotis led development of products for Pfizer and Bristol-Myers Squibb, including Sutent®, Mylotarg®, Bosulif® and Sprycel®. She also serves on the board of directors at Passage Bio and privately held biotechnology companies Capstan Therapeutics, Leal Therapeutics and Recludix Therapeutics. Dr. Countouriotis holds an undergraduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles and an M.D. from the Tufts University School of Medicine. She received training at the University of California, Los Angeles and at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in the Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Program.

Mr. Maynard currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of Cara Therapeutics, Inc., a publicly-traded commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company. He previously served as the Chief Financial Officer of Paulus Holdings Ltd. d/b/a LetsGetChecked. Prior to LetsGetChecked, he was the Chief Financial Officer of Blade Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company. Mr. Maynard has served in various executive roles at Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a public commercial-stage drug development company, including 10 years as Chief Financial Officer. He also served as Corporate Controller and Director of Finance and Accounting for Personify, Inc., an e-commerce software company, and Controller of General Magic, Inc. Mr. Maynard has held various positions at Siliconix, Inc., including Senior Finance Manager. He previously worked at Ernst and Young LLP. He holds a B.S. in Commerce–Accounting from Santa Clara University.

Wayne Rothbaum is president of Quogue Capital, a single-family office private equity fund focused on investing and supporting small to midcap life sciences companies. Mr. Rothbaum began his career at The Carson Group, a strategic consulting firm, where he managed its life sciences practice and boutique investment bank Evolution Capital. Following The Carson Group’s sale to Thomson Reuters in 2001, Mr. Rothbaum founded Quogue Capital, through which he has founded and/or invested in numerous private and public life sciences companies.

In 2012, Mr. Rothbaum co-founded and was the Executive Chairman of Acerta Pharma, a private life sciences company he later sold to AstraZeneca. Acerta’s lead drug, Calquence® (acalabrutinib) was approved by the FDA for mantle cell lymphoma in 2017 and chronic lymphocytic leukemia in 2020. In 2016, Mr. Rothbaum also co-founded Kartos Therapeutics following the in-license of an investigational MDM2 inhibitor from Amgen. More recently, in 2019, he co-founded Telios Pharma after licensing a novel targeted therapy from Merck KGaA to treat selected blood cancers and ophthalmology diseases. Additionally, Mr. Rothbaum has taken a leadership role in transforming Iovance, restructuring and reorganizing its Board of Directors, senior management and overall clinical operations and strategy. Currently, Mr. Rothbaum is a board member and its largest shareholder.

Mr. Rothbaum graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Binghamton University in 1990 with a dual major in political science and psychology and received his MA in international economics from The George Washington University. He is listed as an inventor on many scientific patents and is published in numerous medical journals, including The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet and the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Dr. Weiser is the Founder and a Principal of Actin Biomed LLC, a healthcare investment firm focused on the discovery and development of novel treatments for unmet medical needs. Prior to joining Actin Biomed, Dr. Weiser was the Director of Research at Paramount BioCapital, Inc., a pharmaceutical development and healthcare investment firm. Dr. Weiser previously served as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Chelsea Therapeutics International, Ltd., a development stage pharmaceutical company that was acquired by H. Lundbeck A/S in 2014. He also served on the Board of Directors of Emisphere Technologies, Inc., a pharmaceutical and drug delivery company, and Ziopharm Oncology, Inc., a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company focused on immunotherapies in oncology. Dr. Weiser holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Vermont, received an M.D. from New York University School of Medicine, and completed a Ph.D. in Molecular Neurobiology at Cornell University Medical College.

Ms. Yarno retired in September 2008 from Merck & Co., Inc., following a 26-year career there in commercial and human resource positions of increasing seniority, most recently Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer before she retired. In that role, Ms. Yarno led an organization charged with global commercialization strategy and all aspects of supporting pre-and post-launch commercialization of pharmaceuticals in more than 20 therapeutic areas. Ms. Yarno currently serves on the board of directors of publicly traded life sciences companies Ideaya Bio, Inc., Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. She formerly served on the boards of St. Jude Medical, Inc., MyoKardia, Inc., Medivation, Inc., Global Blood Therapeutics, Inc., Aratana Therapeutics, Inc., Alder Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. and Durata Therapeutics, Inc., prior to their acquisitions. Ms. Yarno received a B.S. in Business Administration from Portland State University and an M.B.A. from Temple University.

Dr. Vogt joined Iovance in September 2016 as General Counsel. He has served as Interim CEO and President since May 2021 and a member of the board of directors since June 2024. He has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries. Prior to joining Iovance, Dr. Vogt practiced law at the international firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, focusing on intellectual property and business law in the life sciences and representing clients in patent strategy, transactional and litigation matters. Previously, he served in numerous scientific, management and legal roles of increasing responsibility over a period of 13 years at GlaxoSmithKline, where he focused primarily on oncology and cardiovascular drug development and made contributions to the development and approval of Hycamtin®, Votrient®, Tafinlar®, and Mekinist®. Dr. Vogt holds a B.S. in Chemistry from Ursinus College, a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Pennsylvania State University and a J.D. from Temple University. He has authored or co-authored more than 70 research papers and book chapters and is a co-inventor of numerous patent applications in the drug development and life sciences fields. He is admitted to practice in Pennsylvania and before the US Patent and Trademark Office, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.