Gilead­'s Kite re­cruits an Ab­b­Vie/NIH vet­er­an to head up cell ther­a­py R&D. And he's tak­ing aim at AML in a fe­ro­cious­ly com­pet­i­tive field

Four months af­ter Kite R&D ex­ec Pe­ter Em­tage jumped ship to sign on with Ver­sant as a CEO-in-wait­ing, the big Gilead sub has re­cruit­ed im­muno-on­col­o­gy ex­pert Francesco Mar­in­co­la to take his place as head of cell ther­a­py re­search — putting him in a promi­nent po­si­tion in a boom­ing field.

Mar­in­co­la has been mak­ing the rounds to a cer­tain ex­tent as cell ther­a­py took hold as one of the hottest fields in drug R&D. He made his rep at the NIH — where he spent 23 years, 15 as head of the In­fec­tious Dis­ease and Im­muno­genet­ics Sec­tion at the NIH Clin­i­cal Cen­ter — and then jumped to Ab­b­Vie, where he guid­ed I/O dis­cov­ery strat­e­gy. The re­search ex­ec spent close to 3 years in his last post as CSO at Refuge Biotech­nolo­gies.

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