Chimeric Therapeutics Ltd (ASX:CHM) has appointed highly experienced Dr Li Ren as vice president, technical operations.
Dr Ren joins Chimeric with a focus on advancing the technical operations of the company’s assets.
The newly appointed vice president will bring extensive cell therapy experience, most recently from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) where she oversaw technology transfers from Juno Therapeutics.
“Expertise and experience”
Chimeric’s chief operating officer Jennifer Chow said: “Chimeric is incredibly excited and very fortunate to have Dr Ren joining us.
“Technical operations is a critical component of cell therapy development and finding the expertise and experience that Dr Ren brings is rare.”
Ensuring technology transfer
In her role at Chimeric, Dr Ren will be responsible for leading the process and analytical development of CLTX CAR T and ensuring the successful technology transfer to a clinical manufacturing organisation of CLTX CAR T to enable future clinical trials.
Chow said: “Dr Ren joining Chimeric will further enhance our internal cell therapy expertise, enabling us to advance and accelerate the development of our assets and growth of our company.”
Experience and qualification
Dr Ren has nearly 20 years of experience developing and advancing cell therapy drug candidates from the preclinical stage through to commercial licensure.
Over the course of her career, Dr Ren has also supported multiple IND submissions for pipeline products to enable clinical trials and designed and led process & analytical validation programs in support of commercial registration filing.
At BMS, Dr Ren oversaw the technology transfers of Juno cell therapy pipeline products to BMS manufacturing facilities and provided technical support for both GMP manufacturing and quality control (QC) testing to enable clinical trials.
Before joining BMS, Dr Ren spent nearly 15 years at Celgene and Celgene Cellular Therapies (CCT), leading chemistry, manufacturing and control (CMC) efforts to advance CAR T, TCR and NK cell therapies to clinic.
She has led the process and analytical development of multiple allogeneic & autologous cell therapy products over her career, including CAR T cells, TCR cells, NK cells and mesenchymal-like stem cells.