Mr. CHOO Chee Kong has been our Chairman since the incorporation of our Company in March 2018. Mr. Choo has over 20 years of experience in corporate finance. He is presently the executive vice chairman of CNMC Goldmine Holdings Limited (CNMC Group) which is listed on the SGX-ST (SGX-ST stock code: 5TP) since 2008 where he is responsible for the formulation of the strategic direction and expansion plans as well as the corporate governance of CNMC Group. He previously worked at DBS Bank Ltd of Singapore from 1986 to 2000. In the year 2000, Mr. Choo started his own corporate advisory and stockbroking boutique, Westcomb Financial Group Limited, which he listed on SGX-ST in 2004 (SGX-ST stock code: 5EC) and served as its Chief Executive Officer from 2000 to 2008. He served as an independent director at SGX-ST listed Second Chance Properties Ltd (SGX-ST stock code: 528) from February 2009 to November 2015 and SGX-ST listed FDS Networks Group Ltd (SGX-ST stock code: F07) from June 2008 to March 2015. He also served as a non-executive director at SGX-ST listed Advance SCT Limited (SGX-ST stock code: 5FH) from May 2012 to June 2015. He started his career in October 1981 as a Project Engineer with Esso Singapore Pte Ltd. Mr. Choo received a Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering (First Class Honours) from University of Liverpool (United Kingdom) in July 1981 and a Master in Business Administration from the University of Bradford (United Kingdom) in December 1985. We believe that Mr. Choo’s extensive knowledge of our Company as founder and his experience in executive roles across multiple industries qualifies him to serve on our Board
Dr. Lucas LUK Tien Wee, M.D., has served as a member of our Board since January 2021 and as our Chief Clinical Officer since April 18, 2023. He has a keen interest in cellular therapy and has attended numerous certificate courses pertaining to clinical cell therapy. He is our designated Principal Investigator for our registered Phase I Clinical Trials in Malaysia, pertaining to Mesenchymal Stem Cell Therapy and CAR-T Cell therapy. Dr. Lucas also serves as a member of the Science Industry Advisory Committee for PSB Academy’s School of Life Sciences (Singapore), since 2019. He is also the Medical Director and Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (O&G), and founding Chairman of the Independent Ethics Committee, at LMC, a private licensed hospital in Malaysia since 2019. As an advocate for women’s health, Dr. Lucas has held the position of Secretary for the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RCOG) International Representative Committee (IRC) – Malaysia, from 2018 until October 2021. He is also actively involved in medical education and has been on board the central planning and training committee for the Malaysian National MRCOG Parallel Pathway Programme for Malaysian doctors training in the specialty of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, since November 2017. He is an invited medical lecturer at Monash University (Johor Campus) since March 2021. Dr. Lucas received his M.D. MRCOG (UK) from Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (United Kingdom) in 2016 and MB BCh BAO from Royal College of Surgeons (Ireland) in 2008, and has a Good Clinical Practice qualification. We believe that Dr. Luk’s extensive background in the practice of medicine and academic tenure qualifies him to serve on our Board.
Dr. ZENG Jieming, M.D., Ph.D., is one of our scientific founders. He was appointed to the Board on April 18, 2023. He has served as our Chief Scientific and Medical Officer overseeing the product development and manufacturing as well as the clinical trial application since August 2019. Equipped with over 20 years of research experience and in-depth knowledge in the field, he has dedicated himself to translating the Company’s platform technologies into clinical applications and therapeutics. Prior to joining CytoMed, he has been working as a research scientist in the A*STAR, Singapore from June 2004 until July 2019. He has been the key scientist of several research projects and the lead authors of 11 original research articles, for which he both carried out and led the research as well as wrote and published the papers. His research has been focused on developing efficient non-viral and viral vectors for gene therapy (Zeng, et al. J Gene Med 6: 1247, 2004; Zeng, et al. Biomaterials 26: 679, 2005; Zeng, et al. Biomaterials 28: 1443, 2007; Zeng, et al. Stem Cells 25: 1055, 2007; Zeng, et al. Molecular Therapy 17: 1585, 2009; Du, Zeng et al. J Biosci Bioeng 109: 1, 2010) as well as developing novel cancer immunotherapies from human pluripotent stem cells (“hPSCs”), including human embryonic stem cells (“hESCs”) and induced pluripotent stem cells (“iPSCs”) (Zeng, et al. The Journal of Immunology188: 4297, 2012; Zeng, et al. Stem Cells Transl Med 3: 69, 2014; Zeng, et al. Scientific Reports 5: 15262, 2015; Zeng, et al. Stem Cell Reports 9: 1796, 2017; Zeng, et al. PLoS One 14: e02168152019). During his 15-year stint in A*STAR, he successfully generated dendritic cells for cancer vaccination and NK cells for adoptive cell transfer from hPSCs (Zeng, et al. The Journal of Immunology 188: 4297, 2012; Zeng, et al. Stem Cells Transl Med 3: 69, 2014; Zeng, et al. Scientific Reports 5: 15262, 2015; Zeng, et al. Stem Cell Reports 9: 1796, 2017). These hPSC-based immune cell technologies open a new frontier in the development of cell-based cancer immunotherapy. In 2017, he has invented an iPSC-based technology to produce a novel type of synthetic immune cells, γδ NKT cells to recognize and kill a wide range of cancers (Zeng, et al. PLoS One 14: e02168152019) and the technology has been licensed to us in 2018. Dr. Zeng received his Ph.D. from National University of Singapore (Singapore) in 2004 and M.D. from Sun Yat-Sen University (China) in 1996. We believe that Dr. Zeng’s professional achievements in translational medicine qualifies him to serve on our Board.
Dr. TAN Wee Kiat, Ph.D, who will become a Director upon consummation of this offering, has served as our Chief Operating Officer since February 2019. He oversees operations of the Company, including facility management, human resource, manpower allocation, manufacturing, quality control and assurance of cell therapy products, clinical trial operations, R&D, budgeting of operation, compliance and support business development function. Prior to that, he served as the Company’s Chief Production Officer and Chief Technology Officer from July 2018 to January 2019 where he was tasked to develop the Company’s technology into a clinically ready platform for clinical trial application. Dr. Tan also serves as a director of Puricell Lab Pte Ltd since its incorporation in October 2020. Dr Tan has also been appointed as a Director of CytoMed Therapeutics (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd starting from Nov 11, 2022. Prior to joining CytoMed, he served in Tessa Therapeutics Pte Ltd, a biotechnology company engaged in the use of virus specific T cells to treat cancer, as a research scientist from August 2017 to July 2018. Dr. Tan completed his Ph.D in 2016 following cancer research at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, A*STAR. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in 2012, both degrees from the National University of Singapore (Singapore). Dr. Tan has a GCP qualification. We believe that Dr. Tan’s background in biopharmaceutical industry operations and academic research qualifies him to serve on our Board.
Ms. GOH Yvonne has served as our Chief Financial Officer since March 2020. She oversees the functions relating to finance, accounting, reporting and procurement. Prior to joining CytoMed, Ms Goh served as Finance Manager at SBI Offshore Limited) (SGX-ST stock code: 5PL), a public company listed in Singapore engaged in the oil and gas industry, from September 2017 to February 2020. Prior to assuming the position of Finance Manager at SBI Offshore Limited, Ms. Goh was the Assistant Finance Manager from December 2016 to September 2017 and served Accountant from May 2016 to November 2016. From July 2010 until April 2015, Ms Goh was the Senior Executive – Finance at Leeden National Oxygen Limited, a welding, gas and safety integration specialist based in Singapore. Prior to that, Ms. Goh held accounting roles in various private companies. Ms Goh is a Chartered Accountant (CA) of the Institute of Singapore Chartered Accountants (ISCA) since 2016. We believe that Ms. Goh’s broad operational management experience in listed companies and experience in accounting qualifies her to serve as our Chief Finance Officer.
Ms. TAN Yoong Ying has served as our Chief Corporate Officer since June 2018 where she oversees legal compliance, business administration, public and government relation, facility management, human resource and corporate secretarial. She has been a director of all our subsidiaries in Malaysia and Singapore since their incorporation, including CytoMed Malaysia, starting from June 2018, IPSCBank Pte Ltd, IPSC Depository Sdn Bhd, starting from June 2019, Puricell, starting from October 2020 and Advance Cancer Centre Pte Ltd, starting from February 2020. Prior to these roles with the Company’s subsidiaries, Ms. Tan was a director of Advantage Mining Sbd Bhd from March 2016 until June 2018. From November 2014 to March 2017, she served as the Department Manager of Pulai Mining Sdn Bhd, a private gold mining company in Malaysia, where she participated actively in daily operation management, corporate restructuring and acquisition. Ms. Tan holds a Postgraduate Degree in Legal Practice from BPP Law School (United Kingdom) graduated in 2014, LLM from University of Aberdeen (United Kingdom) in 2012, and a Bachelor Degree in Laws from Jinan University (China) in 2011.