Mark Bittinger, Ph.D.
Mark Bittinger has more than 25 years of experience in oncology drug discovery, with expertise spanning target identification and validation through IND-enabling studies and clinical strategy. He has held leadership roles across large pharma, startups, CROs, and hybrid industry/academic institutions, bringing a track record of delivering clinical candidates, innovative targets, and pipeline progression anchored by biomarker-guided patient selection strategies.At Agios Pharmaceuticals, Mark contributed to the foundational biology of the IDH1/2 programs, generating key validation packages and assays that helped advance what became a breakthrough class of approved cancer medicines. At the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, he established functional genomic and immuno-oncology platforms that secured multiple large pharma collaborations and directed scientific leaders across a broad portfolio of oncology programs.
At Merck Research Laboratories, Mark served as project leader on small-molecule immuno-oncology and synthetic-lethal phenotypic screening programs, and contributed to business development and licensing assessments. He subsequently led the global biology function at SAI Life Sciences, growing and evolving a team of 60+ scientists across US and India sites while building a sustainable client discovery pipeline. At Parthenon Therapeutics, he leveraged AI-guided tumor pathology analyses to identify and validate an exciting target to address tumor fibrosis and immune exclusion. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Translational Biology at Auron Therapeutics, advancing a lead degrader program into IND-enabling studies and building the experimental arm of an AI-enabled discovery platform in partnership with the computational team.
Mark has broad modality expertise spanning small molecules, protein degraders, and biologics, and is comfortable at the interface of biology, functional genomics, and bioinformatics. He brings a focused, minimalistic approach to experimental design and go/no-go decision-making, and has experience evaluating investment and partnering opportunities for both large pharma and venture capital organizations.
At Merck Research Laboratories, Mark served as project leader on small-molecule immuno-oncology and synthetic-lethal phenotypic screening programs, and contributed to business development and licensing assessments. He subsequently led the global biology function at SAI Life Sciences, growing and evolving a team of 60+ scientists across US and India sites while building a sustainable client discovery pipeline. At Parthenon Therapeutics, he leveraged AI-guided tumor pathology analyses to identify and validate an exciting target to address tumor fibrosis and immune exclusion. Most recently, he served as Vice President of Translational Biology at Auron Therapeutics, advancing a lead degrader program into IND-enabling studies and building the experimental arm of an AI-enabled discovery platform in partnership with the computational team.
Mark has broad modality expertise spanning small molecules, protein degraders, and biologics, and is comfortable at the interface of biology, functional genomics, and bioinformatics. He brings a focused, minimalistic approach to experimental design and go/no-go decision-making, and has experience evaluating investment and partnering opportunities for both large pharma and venture capital organizations.