Tom Lynch (Rob Tannenbaum, Endpoints News)

Tom Lynch moves to re­struc­ture Fred Hutch as acad­e­mia, in­dus­try con­tin­ue to push cell ther­a­py in­to sol­id tu­mors

By the time for­mer Bris­tol My­ers Squibb CSO Tom Lynch stepped in to run the Fred Hutch Can­cer Re­search Cen­ter last year, both the po­ten­tial and lim­its of the in­sti­tute’s pre­clin­i­cal re­search had be­come clear.

The in­sti­tute’s re­searchers, in­clud­ing famed vi­rol­o­gist Lar­ry Corey, had helped make CAR-T ther­a­pies a re­al­i­ty, con­tribut­ing ba­sic sci­ence and co-found­ing Juno Ther­a­peu­tics, the cell ther­a­py start­up Cel­gene bought out for $9 bil­lion. But while cell ther­a­pies have now proven an ef­fec­tive — even some­times cu­ra­tive — ther­a­py across mul­ti­ple blood can­cers, the ap­proach has been frus­trat­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to ap­ply to sol­id tu­mors.

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