Lunit Expands Team with Multiple Industry Leaders to Accelerate its Business Growth

Press Releases

Nov 08, 2021

SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 8, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Lunit, a leading medical AI provider, today announced it recently reinforced its team with industry and regulatory experts to accelerate its business expansion and growth in the US. New joiners include Ken Nesmith (Former CEO of Lexent Bio), Marcus Skovhus (Former Senior Director at Foundation Medicine), and Subok Park (Former Regulatory Scientist at US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)).

The company also announced Mark Germain, Managing Director at Aentib Group, and Dr. Young Kwang Chae, Medical Oncologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, joined as advisors to provide expert insight at Lunit’s advisory board.

“It is with great honor that I welcome new members and advisors with remarkable accomplishments and expertise in the biotech industry, medicine, and regulatory affairs,” said Brandon Suh, CEO of Lunit. “These are core pillars that form our business and lead its growth and we are lucky to have them join us at an exciting time as we accelerate growth and expansion in the global market.”

The company welcomed three members with over 10 years of professional experience in biotech and scientific fields. They will spearhead Lunit’s Oncology business, corporate development, and regulatory strategy, respectively.

Ken Nesmith, Chief Business Officer, Oncology

Ken Nesmith has been active in healthcare and life sciences as a technologist and executive for over 15 years. He was the co-founder and CEO of Lexent Bio, a leading liquid biopsy company that was acquired by Foundation Medicine (Parent company: Roche) in 2020. Prior to Lexent Bio, he built his career at many renowned companies such as Counsyl, Noom, Boston Consulting Group, and Goldman Sachs. As CBO of Oncology, Ken will oversee business opportunities for Lunit’s cancer treatment solutions. “The team at Lunit shares a commitment to changing cancer detection, diagnosis, and treatment, driving advances at the intersection of AI and cancer biology,” said Ken. “I’m thrilled and honored to join the executive leadership team in support of the mission at Lunit.”

Marcus Skovhus, VP of Corporate Development

Marcus Skovhus is a biotech professional with 10 years of tenure across a spectrum of healthcare areas including therapeutic development, advanced diagnostic platforms and more. Most recently, he was responsible for Corporate Strategy and Portfolio Planning at Foundation Medicine (FMI). Prior to FMI, he worked as a consultant at ZS Associates in Boston after having spent 7 years in various strategy related roles within Hoffmann-La Roche’s pharmaceutical division in Basel, Switzerland. At Lunit, he will develop and execute corporate strategy and M&A activities to accelerate the company’s long-term growth. “Lunit’s achievements in the AI space over the past years represent major milestones for the future of cancer care,” said Marcus. “I am excited to join this very talented and mission driven team, and to support the future growth of the organization.”

Subok Park, Director of Clinical Strategy, Radiology Medical Affairs

Subok Park is a regulatory scientist with expertise in the objective assessment of medical image quality. She has over 16 years of professional experience working at the US FDA, where she directed a research program for breast imaging assessment and shaped FDA’s regulatory strategy for medical imaging device assessment. Her most recent professional experience includes the assessment of artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML)-based computer-assisted software devices (CADs), as well as regulatory strategy for AI/ML software as a medical device (SaMD) beyond the scope of CAD. With this combination of regulatory and technical expertise, Subok will lead in establishing regulatory strategies for Lunit AI/ML SaMD products. “Since joining Lunit last August, I’ve been greatly enjoying working synergistically with highly intelligent and dedicated members of Lunit with interdisciplinary expertise for various products to market in the US,” commented Subok.

Lunit also further strengthened its advisory board with two biotech and medical experts. It is known to hold a strong advisory board of industry KOLs including Dr. Eliot Siegel, Dr. Linda Moy, Dr. Khan Siddiqui, Dr. Tony Mok, Scott Schubert and more.

Mark Germain

Mark Germain is a Managing Director at The Aentib Group, a boutique merchant banking company based in Canada. As a biotech guru active in the industry since 1991, he is known to be involved as a founder, director, chairman of the board of, and/or investor in, over twenty companies in the biotech field. Many of the companies he co-founded are publicly listed in NASDAQ, including Incyte Corporation, Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc., Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and ChromaDex, Inc. Currently, he serves as Chairman and member of the Board of Directors at public biotech companies such as BiondVax Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and Pluristem Therapeutics Inc.

“I’ve worked with quite a few management teams in young companies over the years who have been quite successful, and I find the team at Lunit to be among the best,” said Mark. “They are smart, mature, understand their company, their customers and, most importantly, how they can make a meaningful impact on the lives of the cancer patients they serve. I believe they are poised to build a great company and play a significant role in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and it’s a pleasure to be working with them.”

Dr. Young Kwang Chae

Dr. Young Kwang Chae is a medical oncologist at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, also a Co-Director of Developmental Therapeutics Lurie Cancer Center of Northwestern University. Dr. Chae has published more than 110 peer-reviewed journals and been involved in more than 115 research abstracts on personalized precision medicine and novel combination therapy. From 2020, he engaged with the Lunit research team to validate the predictive power of AI-based immune phenotype, and the study was presented at ASCO 2020.

“I am looking forward to fulfilling the dream of providing cancer patients with the immunotherapy and customized treatment they need,” said Dr.Chae. “I believe Lunit’s AI technology will serve as a stepping stone to complete customized immunotherapy.”

“We started off as a software company mainly focused on research and development. In the past few years, we have successfully launched and commercialized our early products with global business partners, growing to become a leading medical AI provider,” added Suh. “There is still much more to come and with the help of our new multidisciplinary experts, we will be able to take a step further towards conquering cancer through AI.”