James Tonra

Dr. Tonra has worked for 24 years in biotechnology, leading and utilizing in-house, contracted and sponsored research efforts to generate definitive data packages that enable the advancement of research projects to investigational new drug (IND) filing and guide clinical development at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, ImClone Systems/Eli Lilly, Kadmon Holdings and BeyondSpring.

Dr. Tonra has collaborated with and led multidisciplinary project teams to develop biologic and small-molecule drug candidates for disease indications including oncology, CNS disorders, inflammation and diabetes. He has authored over 45 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on numerous use-patents. In the nearly 10 years Dr. Tonra spent at ImClone/Eli Lilly, his efforts were critical in the validation and IND filing for 10 preclinical assets, including Cyramza®, Portrazza®, and Lartruvo®. Moreover, Dr. Tonra’s work at ImClone/Eli Lilly demonstrated synergy between the combination of agents such as Cyramza® and Tarceva®, recently shown to have meaningful clinical benefit in a subtype of non-small cell lung cancer patients. As the Chief Scientific Officer at BeyondSpring, Dr. Tonra was instrumental in advancing the company’s immune-oncology strategy and ubiquitination platform. He was part of the team that discovered plinabulin’s differentiated mechanism of action and was instrumental in expanding plinabulin’s clinical indications through outsourced nonclinical research and collaborations with leading academic experts. Dr. Tonra is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at Evrys Bio and serves as a Scientific Advisor for BeyondSpring.

Dr. Tonra received his Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from SUNY at Stony Brook and a B.S. in Physics, Summa Cum Laude, from SUNY at Stony Brook.