Cel­lec­tis re­cruits ex-Servi­er re­search chief De­pil; Are­na inks $224M deal on new drugs; JLABS heads to Shang­hai; As­traZeneca vet takes Goldfinch helm

→ French CAR-T de­vel­op­er Cel­lec­tis has re­cruit­ed Stéphane De­pil, the for­mer R&D chief of Servi­er, to lead the com­pa­ny’s clin­i­cal de­vel­op­ment. De­pil will serve as se­nior vice pres­i­dent of R&D and chief med­ical of­fi­cer. The new ap­point­ment brings De­pil back to the in­dus­try af­ter a break while he di­rect­ed the can­cer im­munother­a­py pro­gram at the Léon Bérard Can­cer Cen­ter in Ly­on, France. But back when he was at Servi­er, he over­saw 20 can­cer pro­grams, sev­er­al of which were in clin­i­cal tri­als. Cel­lec­tis hopes to ben­e­fit from De­pil’s track record in the field to move its CAR-T as­sets in­to the clin­ic af­ter a rough start in­volv­ing a pa­tient death. “Stéphane De­pil’s deep med­ical, aca­d­e­m­ic, and clin­i­cal reg­u­la­to­ry on­col­o­gy ex­pe­ri­ence – specif­i­cal­ly in R&D for all phas­es with­in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, biotech­nol­o­gy, and clin­i­cal re­search spaces – will be in­valu­able as he leads Cel­lec­tis’ strat­e­gy and pro­motes aware­ness of the break­through work that we are do­ing as a leader and in­no­va­tor in the gene-edit­ing field,” said An­dré Chouli­ka, Cel­lec­tis’ CEO, in a state­ment. “His strate­gic al­liance-build­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion skills, un­der­stand­ing of the glob­al en­vi­ron­ment with on­co­log­i­cal clin­i­cal re­search, and first­hand ex­pe­ri­ence run­ning a phar­ma com­pa­ny all add a great de­gree of abil­i­ty and depth to our lead­er­ship team.”

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