London, UK, November XXth, 2023 – Ori Biotech Ltd. (Ori), a leader in cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing technology, today announces new additions to the executive team to support the commercial launch of its platform and the status of enrolment into their oversubscribed Lightspeed Early Access Program (LEAP).
Ori has appointed John Machulski as Chief Operating Officer. John brings extensive operational experience to Ori from past leadership roles at Catalent, Lonza, GE Life Sciences (now Cytiva), Sanofi, Pfizer and J&J. These roles have covered operations, engineering and commercial, and included the building and startup of multiple cell and gene therapy manufacturing facilities in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Thomas Heathman, Ph.D has also been promoted to Chief Commercial Officer and has spearheaded Ori’s LEAP partnerships in 2023. Tom and his team will lead the upcoming commercial launch of Ori’s cell therapy manufacturing platform.
In addition, Ori has added expertise to its world-class Advisory Board to support the Ori platform’s commercial launch. The following industry experts have recently been added to the Strategic Advisory Board:
Bruce Thompson stated, “As the CGT industry continues to mature, we need technologies that are flexible enough for use in R&D and process development as well as scalable enough to enable commercial manufacturing. The Ori platform has incredible potential to shorten development times, lower COGS, increase throughput and improve consistency. I am pleased to join the Ori Biotech Strategic Advisory Board and excited to advise the company as they bring this revolutionary technology to market.”
Ori’s full-stack manufacturing system fully automates, digitizes and standardizes CGT manufacturing, enabling therapy developers to seamlessly transition from pre-clinical process discovery to commercial scale. The platform’s hardware, software and analytical tools promise increased throughput and reproducibility, while reducing costs – ultimately helping manufacture life-saving therapies at scale, in order to enable widespread patient access.
Ori’s LEAP program is giving leading industry partners, like Inceptor Bio, CTMC (a joint venture between Resilience and MD Anderson), adthera bio and an undisclosed big pharma partner, access to Ori’s proprietary CGT manufacturing platform prior to commercial launch in 2024. These LEAP partners are doing feasibility testing of Ori’s digitally native manufacturing platform to accelerate their progress toward the scalable production of novel cell therapies.
Ori’s CCO Thomas Heathman remarked: “We are looking forward to seeing our first product reach the market so we can begin enabling our partners to deliver cell therapies to more patients in need. Our team, our advisors and our partners have the deep expertise necessary to ensure our platform delivers on both the research and GMP requirements for flexible and scalable manufacturing that our industry requires. Our collective ambition is to ensure that this new generation of therapies are not just approvable, but also affordable and accessible.”
Jason C Foster, CEO of Ori Biotech added: “If we can’t produce cell and gene therapies affordably, and at scale, their potential may never be realized. Over the last 3 years, we have generated best-in-class biological data from over 500 runs, with 9 different partners, using 10 different protocols to demonstrate the potential of the Ori platform. We are honored to be joined by experienced industry veterans and key opinion leaders on our mission to enable widespread patient access to life saving cell and gene therapies.”
About Ori Biotech
Ori is a London and New Jersey-based manufacturing technology company pioneering flexible process discovery with seamless translation and scalable commercialization of cell and gene therapies. Ori has developed a proprietary, full-stack manufacturing platform that closes, automates and standardizes CGT manufacturing, allowing therapeutics developers to develop and bring their products to market at commercial scale. The promise of the innovative Ori platform is to fully automate CGT manufacturing to increase throughput, improve quality and decrease costs by combining proprietary hardware, software, data and analytics. For more information, visit oribiotech.com.
Contact Information
For Ori Biotech:
IB Communications
Mark Zipkin/Michelle Boxall
Tel: +44 (0) 208 943 4685
Email: Oribiotech@ibcomms.agency
Ori Biotech Ltd 2022 © All rights reserved. Oribiotech is registered in England and Wales. Company registration 09757696.