Cell & Gene Therapy Innovation Speakers
Markus Karmasin
Head of Cell and Gene Therapy Germany
Novartis
Specialties includes pharmaceutical industry, marketing, and market access.
Pavlina Konstantinova
VP Research
uniQure N.V.
Dr. Pavlina Konstantinova is Vice President Research at uniQure, a gene therapy company focusing on orphan genetic diseases including HD.
Benoit Moreaux
Chief Scientific and Technological Officer
Bone Therapeutics
Benoit Moreaux brings 20 years of industry expertise in strategic operations planning and execution, as well as global quality assurance.
Sarah Snykers
QC Manager
Celyad
Sarah joined Celyad in 2015 to be at the offspring of a new exciting technology in the immunooncology field.
Christian van den Bos
Managing Director
Mares Ltd
Dr. van den Bos current developed technology and IP dramatically enhancing the efficacy of mesenchymal stem cells, the productivity of cell culture media for primary cells and a novel drug target
Laura Sepp-Lorenzino
Chief Scientific Officer
Intellia Therapeutics
Laura Sepp-Lorenzino, Ph.D. is Chief Scientific Officer of Intellia Therapeutics. In this role, she oversees all drug research across in vivo and ex vivo (engineered cell therapy) areas.
Marc Van Dijk
Vice President Platform Technology
AgenTus Therapeutics Ltd
Marc van Dijk, Ph.D. leads platform development for AgenTus and Agenus, and heads the Agenus UK site.
Maria Papathanasiou
Research Associate
Imperial College London
Dr Maria Papathanasiou is an appointed Lecturer at the Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London (in effect April 2020).
Eric Halioua
President & Chief Executive Officer
PDC*line Pharma
Mr. Eric Halioua, MS, MBA, serves as President of the Board, Chief Executive Officer and President of PDC line Pharma SAS.
Jennifer murray
Managing Director/Past Chair
Life Science Group Ltd/International Serum Industry Association
Jenny has over 30 years’ experience in the cell culture industry in the UK and worldwide and a track record in building successful SMCs. Jenny is the current owner of Life Science Group Ltd (LSG).
Sean O Farrell
Senior Scientist Process Development & Manufacturing
GammaDelta
Masters in Medicine at King's College London
Ohad Karnieli
Founder and CEO
Adva Biotechnology
Dr. Karnieli earned his PhD in Biotechnology from the Sacler school of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and an MBA from the Haifa University school of management.
Troels Jordansen
CEO
Glycostem Therapeutics
Troels has been part of management teams launching 3 cellular therapies across the world and raising in excess of €160 million.
Lior Raviv
Vice President Development
Pluristem Therapeutics
Lior Raviv joined Pluristem in 2011 and currently serves as Vice President of Development.
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André G. Gerth
Chief Executive Officer
BioPlanta GmbH
André acts as Chief executive Officer Director of BioPlanta GmbH and FamiCord Deutschland GmbH.
Magdalena Tary-Lehmann
Chief Scientific Officer
Cellular Technology Limited
Magdalena is a Co-Founding Scientist and Chief Scientific Officer for CTL and Adjunct Associate Professor of Case Western Reserve University Department of Pathology.
Alain Vertès
Managing Director
NxR Biotechnologies GmbH
Dr. Vertès is Managing Director at NxR Biotechnologies, a boutique global consulting firm based in Basel, Switzerland
Pamela Tranter
Head, Translational Research Group
UCL
Pamela joined UCL Translational Research Office (TRO) in 2014 and has been leading the Translational Research group since 2016.
Houria Bachtarzi
Senior Consultant in Gene and Cell Therapies
NDA Group AB
Dr Houria Bachtarzi is a Senior Consultant, Regulatory Affairs - Gene and Cell Therapies, with a strong scientific and regulatory experience in the field of advanced biological therapies
Otto-Wilhelm MERTEN
Gene Therapy and Vector Manufacturing Specialist
Miltenyi Biotec SAS
Otto-Wilhelm MERTEN has a degree in biotechnology (Ph.D.) from the University of Life Sciences in Vienna, holds an HDR at the University of Evry/Val-d’Essonne and is Visiting Professor at ITQB/UNL.
David Dobnik
Senior Research Associate
National Institute of Biology
Work in this field is mostly performed as contract research with partners from Europe and USA
Carmen Brenner
Quality Associate Director
Bone Therapeutics
PhD, Biomedical Science - Laboratory of Cancer Epigenetics
Marina Feschenko
Director, Analytical Development for Gene Therapy
Biogen
Dr. Marina Feschenko is currently a Principle Scientist at Biogen.
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Darrin Disley
Chief Executive Officer
Mogrify Ltd
Darrin is a renowned scientist, entrepreneur, angel investor and enterprise champion who has started or invested in over 40 start-up life science, technology and social enterprises
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Kyle Grant
Associate Director of Vector Production
Voyager
I am a classically trained chemical engineer with a deep understanding of molecular biology.
Paula Maria M. Alves
CEO
IBET
Paula M Alves holds a PhD in Biochemical Engineering from Instituto de Tecnologia Química Biológica da Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
Mio Muelthaler
Director, Business Development, Europe
Berkeley Lights
Mio Muelthaler is on a mission to spread the news about a new fascinating disruptive nanofluidics based single-cell technology for gene therapy in EU.
Annie Hubert
Senior Director of European Public Policy
Alliance for Regenerative Medicine
Annie brings over 30 years of experience in European regulatory and government affairs, pricing, reimbursement and market access to the ARM Team.
Shibashish Giri
Deputy Head, Applied Stem Cell Biology and Cell Technology
University of Leipzig
Dr. Shibashish Giri has more than 12 years’ experience in preclinical research and clinical therapy for cell, tissue and organ regeneration in Germany.
Michael Kapinsky
Strategic Marketing Manager
Beckman Coulter Life Sciences
Michael Kapinsky is a chemist by training.
Cell & Gene Therapy Innovation Past Speakers
Oxford Genetics
Dr Ryan Cawood is the CEO and founder of Oxford Genetics, a UK synthetic biology company that generates scalable solutions for the manufacture of viral vectors. He holds a DPhil in gene therapy and oncology from the University of Oxford. He is passionate about developing new platform technologies that push the boundaries of existing approaches to viral vector engineering and manufacture.
Plasticell
Dr Choo is Executive Chairman of Plasticell Ltd and Chief Executive of Progenitor Labs Ltd. He is the founder of Plasticell and served as Chief Executive and Chief Scientist of the company. Prior to his interest in stem cells he was a founder and Chief Scientist of Gendaq (acquired by Sangamo Biosciences), a biotech company that developed the zinc finger technology now used for gene editing. Previously he was a staff scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, where he pioneered the engineering of protein-DNA interactions using combinatorial methods under Nobel laureate Sir Aaron Klug.
Dark Horse Consulting Group
Rob is a project leader in the biopharmaceutical industry with broad understanding of cell therapies and biologics development. Rob joined Dark Horse Consulting in 2019, bringing over 12 years of experience overseeing clinical trials, regulatory submissions, process improvement, and development strategy. During his career, he has been a part of companies ranging in size and development stage from small entrepreneurial organizations to large corporate pharmaceutical companies. Before joining Dark Horse Consulting, Rob most recently served as Senior Director of Immunotherapy at Asterias Biotherapeutics, a small biopharmaceutical company developing embryonic stem cell-derived therapeutics for spinal injury and cancer. Rob oversaw overall development strategy, cross functional team leadership and clinical trial initiation of the company’s allogeneic cancer immunotherapy platform therapy. He delivered substantial progress of the cancer immunotherapy pipeline asset and a large part of his role was representing the organization to investors and at scientific conferences.
HemaCare Corporation
Passionate, dedicated market strategy and business development industry leader with a team driven collaborative approach. Specific experience in cellular therapy, cancer immunotherapy, medical devices, bioprocessing and single use systems markets.
Association Of The British Pharmaceutical Industry
After graduating in Pharmacology and completing a PhD in Neuropathology, Bryan embarked on a long and successful career in the pharmaceutical industry. A series of increasingly senior positions at SmithKline Beecham and GlaxoSmithKline were mostly focussed on medical marketing and commercial development, covering a variety of therapy areas including infectious diseases, oncology, respiratory and diabetes. These positions included experience in a wide range of countries and regions, from the UK and Europe to China and from Latin America to Asia-Pacific. Over the last 10 years, Bryan has led a variety of projects as a freelance consultant, including support for new product launches, medical affairs and restructuring healthcare agencies.
German Cancer Research Centre
Dr Richard Harbottle is currently an Independent Group Leader of Gene Therapy Research in the section of Molecular Medicine at Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ). The Cancer Research Centre based in Germany. Previously Richard was at Imperial College London where his key research focused on the development of DNA technologies for gene therapy, with a particular focus on the application of scaffold/matrix attachment region (S/MAR) vectors. His group utilises state-of-the-art techniques in molecular and cellular biology and bio-imaging with an emphasis in gene delivery to pre-clinical model systems. A particular focus of his group is the development of genetically marked tumour models, which can be used to investigate the molecular mechanisms of tumour formation as well as simplifying the validation of therapeutic intervention.
Zelluna Immunotherapy
Namir Hassan joined Zelluna Immunotherapy in August 2018 to serve as Chief Scientific Officer. He has 15 years of biotech and pharma industry experience spanning from target validation through to early phase clinical trials. Over his professional career, Namir has developed extensive experience in growing scientific businesses to thrive and deliver high value. Prior to joining Zelluna, Namir was a VP at Immunocore, responsible for creating and growing the infectious disease unit as well as helping to secure up to $40M of funding for the organisation.
DCPrime
Sandra van Wetering is an expert in the development and manufacturing of cell-based products, and has in-depth knowledge the regulatory strategies and processes involved in development of such products, in the context of the relevant EMA/FDA regulatory framework for Advanced Therapeutic Medical Products (ATMP's) and associated GMP guidelines. She holds a PhD in immunology and also has strong knowledge of clinical development and execution of clinical operations, in particular in immunotherapy. She has been working for over 9 years as the COO of DCPrime, a clinical stage company that develops off-the-shelf dendritic cell-based vaccines for a broad range of cancer types, based on its unique, proprietary technology platform, DCOne.
Novartis Pharma AG
Emanuele is Head of Europe for Cell and Gene Therapies at Novartis Oncology, where he oversees the commercialization of this portfolio in Europe. Emanuele is with Novartis since 2012. He joined the Sandoz Division with the Global Strategy Team, where he managed the collaborations with Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Alcon. He then became Head of Specialty and Hospital Franchises, Central/Eastern Europe, where he developed a specialty expansion strategy. Emanuele later served as Business Unit Head, Rx in Romania. In this role he grew the team to drive the expansion into CNS, respiratory, and rheumatology franchises.
WorldCourier
Martin Pohle is a in industry expert and manager in specialty logistics for Pharmaceutics, Semiconductor, Automotive and the Life Sciences. Since 2012 he serves as Branch Manager and leads the Leipzig and Berlin branches of WorldCourier. At World Courier, he is active in global CRO logistics business and is actively involved shaping World Couriers Cell & Gene Therapy service offerings. Martin is also an active speaker for topics such as Innovative Clinical Trial Design and Good Distribution Practices. Before joining WorldCourier, Martin served at medways, a medical technology and Life Science consulting firm.
Celixir
Ajan Reginald is a Biotech entrepreneur and the co-founder and Chief Executive of Celixir plc. Celixir plc is a British cellular medicines company with drugs in late-stage clinical trials for heart failure and tendon repair and an extensive in-house product pipeline. The founders Ajan and Professor Sir Martin Evans (2007 Nobel Laureate) invented Celixir's technology platform to discovery novel cellular medicines and discovered the Heartcel and Tendoncel medicines. Celixir is well funded and considering an IPO in 2018. Prior to Celixir, Ajan held positions with Roche as the Global Head of Emerging Technologies and Business Development Director, Roche Pharmaceuticals. And with Boston Consulting Group in Zurich and Chicago.
Sangamo
Sandy Macrae, M.B., Ch.B., Ph.D., has served as Sangamo’s President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors since June 2016. He has twenty years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry most recently serving as the Global Medical Officer of Takeda Pharmaceuticals, from 2012 to March 2016, where he established and led the Global Medical Office, which encompasses medical affairs, regulatory affairs, pharmacovigilance, outcomes research and epidemiology, quantitative sciences and knowledge and informatics. From 2001 to 2012, Dr. Macrae held roles of increasing responsibility at GlaxoSmithKline, including Senior Vice President, Emerging Markets Research and Development (R&D), from 2009 to 2012. In that position, he provided expertise and resources to create a first-of-its-kind group to expand GSK’s global reach by providing R&D strategies, clinical development and regulatory resources to enter emerging markets and Asia-Pacific. From 2007 to 2008, he was Vice President, Business Development. In that position, he was responsible for scientific assessment and business development project leadership for the neurology, psychiatry, cardiovascular and metabolic therapeutic areas. Earlier in his career, he worked for SmithKline Beecham, where he was responsible for clinical development in the therapeutic areas of neurology and gastroenterology. Dr. Macrae received his B.S. in pharmacology and his M.B., Ch.B. with honors from Glasgow University. He is a member of the Royal College of Physicians. Dr. Macrae also earned his Ph.D. in molecular genomics at King’s College, Cambridge.
Celgene Therapeutics
Stefan Glück, MD, PhD, is V.P of Global Medical Affairs, at Celgene Corporation since October 2014, and a medical oncologist with focus on breast cancer. He has overseen breast, ovarian, pancreatic and bladder cancer activities worldwide, as well as the Immuno-Oncology Program in solid tumors. Recently, his job requirements have shifted to include all solid tumors and most importantly Early Assets. He previously served as a Sylvester Professor in the Department of Medicine at Miller School of Medicine, University of Miami, Florida until September 2014
Regenxbio
Franz has been working in the Gene Therapy field for more than 20 years, optimizing the manufacturing and of adeno associated viral vectors. He has started his career at the Max-Planck-Institute for Virology and the testing Gene Center of the University of Munich, where he received his Ph.D. After working on a gene therapy project at Wellstat Ophthalmics and subsequently at a Contract Manufacturer, he joined REGENXBIO Inc. 4 years ago. Until recently he led the Process Development group, and has transitioned within the company to lead the newly established Technical Innovations and New Technologies group. His focus has been the development of a robust and scalable manufacturing platform with increased titer and quality while addressing to decrease the cost of goods.
Amnion Foundation
Dr. McAllister is the Executive Director at the Amnion Foundation, a public stem cell bank that is developing technology pioneered by Dr. Anthony Atala at Mass General Hospital in Boston (www.amnionfoundation.org). Amnion’s mission is to extend the successful model of public marrow and cord blood banking to provide immunologically matched stem cells with therapeutic capabilities beyond diseases of the blood. Prior to Amnion, Dr. McAllister was co-founder and CEO of Cytograft, a cardiovascular regenerative medicine company that developed cell-based therapies to repair and rebuild diseased tissues without using synthetic biomaterials.
Genethon
Dr Ryan Cawood is the CEO and founder of Oxford Genetics, a UK synthetic biology company that generates scalable solutions for the manufacture of viral vectors. He holds a DPhil in gene therapy and oncology from the University of Oxford. He is passionate about developing new platform technologies that push the boundaries of existing approaches to viral vector engineering and manufacture.
Advanced Cell Diagnostics, Inc.
Dr. Kai Wilkens completed his Biology studies and PhD thesis in Molecular Biology in Bochum working in the field of Gene Expression Control. He did clinical research for a couple of years and after that held different positions in several Life Science companies pioneering innovative technologies and mainly enabling new approaches in translational and clinical research. These included MWG Biotech, Panomics/Affymetrix, Mesoscale Discovery and now Advanced Cell Diagnostics, a Bio-Techne brand.
Cellular Therapeutics
John undertook his PhD in 2004 under the supervision of Dr. David Gilham and Prof. Robert Hawkins at the University of Manchester. During this time his main interest was uncovering the signalling and molecular interactions of chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) and development of novel costimulatory CARs. In 2010 John moved to the labs of Prof. David Price and Prof. Andrew Sewell at Cardiff University where he focussed on T-cell receptor (TCR) gene transfer, using it as a tool to understand biological phenomena such as alloreactivity and TCR cross-reactivity, as well as further developing adoptive cell therapy strategies.
Celyad SA
Jean-Pierre joined Celyad in January 2016 and is responsible for strengthening the organization and key processes in manufacturing, quality, program management, clinical operations and regulatory affairs. He started his career as a Research Associate at the Michigan State University in the US. Following that assignment, he moved to the Johnson & Johnson group where he held various positions, from Scientist to Senior Scientist. He then joined Cardio3 BioSciences in 2008 as Project Manager Delivery System and left the company in 2012 in the position of Senior Director Business Development.
Bluebird Bio
Dr. Katherine Seidl earned a Ph.D. in Genetics (1996) from Stanford University, under the supervision of Drs. Len and Lee Herzenberg studying B cell development and immunoglobulin repertoire. After postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School (1996-2000) under the guidance of Dr. Frederick Alt studying B cell immunoglobulin VDJ and class switch recombination, Dr. Seidl embarked on a 15+ year career in drug discovery and development. Since June 2016, Dr. Seidlhas served as Director, Oncology, at bluebird bio, Cambridge, MA. Dr. Seidl was formerly with Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge, MA , USA where she held several positions with increasing responsibility over a nearly 6 year tenure.
University of Oxford
As Co-Director of the Gene Medicine Research Group his research is focused on the application of gene therapy technologies to provide therapeutic interventions for human disease. During his post-doctoral research at Oxford Stephen was the first to demonstrate that gene transfer could correct the Cystic Fibrosis defect in transgenic mice. This led to an extensive pre-clinical and clinical programme of gene therapy. Products developed in the Gene Medicine Research Group have been evaluated in four gene therapy clinical trials.