David Damphousse, M.S.

David Damphousse, M.S. joined Ikena as the Senior Vice President of Clinical Development Operations in October 2023.  He is a seasoned executive with over 30 years of drug development experience across discovery, clinical operations, program management, and operational leadership working in both big pharma and emerging stage biotechnology. Prior to joining Ikena full time, David was a Sr. Consultant for the company, performing due diligence of Pionyr Therapeutic’s clinical assets and managed the transition and closure of its clinical programs as a wholly owned subsidiary of Ikena after the acquisition was completed. David also consulted for an antiviral company helping to build a potential clinical pipeline for rare viral diseases. Prior to consulting, he was the SVP of Clinical Development and Program Management for Sail Bio, a company looking to address toxic proteinopathies in rare kidney diseases. He also previously served as the VP of Vaccine Operations at Translate Bio responsible for high-level cross-functional oversight of the mRNA vaccine portfolio in collaboration with Sanofi leading to a $3.2B bid from Sanofi. David also served as VP of Clinical Operations for Intarcia Therapeutics building out a team of operations, medical writing, data management, biostats, and program management, leading multiple Phase 1, 2 and global phase 3 trials through to NDA filings and FDA inspections. Prior to Intarcia, David held multiple leadership positions within clinical, program management, and operational planning for 9 years at Idenix Pharmaceuticals where he championed single source outsourcing for all pre-clinical work through to IND/CTA submissions for two drug candidates allowing for oversight and successful completion of two Phase I POC studies resulting in Merck submitting a $3.85B bid for Idenix.  He has also held leadership roles with increasing clinical responsibility at BMS, Cubist Pharmaceuticals and DuPont. David’s career began at DuPont where he worked as a Sr. Staff Scientist closely collaborating his work in science with the clinical operations team ultimately allowing him to transfer into the group as a CRA to begin his clinical career. David earned a M.S. in Pharmacology from Northeastern University and a B.S. in Cell, Developmental and Molecular Biology from the University of New Hampshire.