London, UK, July 7, 2021 – Ori Biotech Ltd, a leader in cell and gene therapy (CGT) manufacturing technologies, today announces it has made a number of appointments to expand its senior leadership team. This includes appointing Kevin Gordon as Chief Data and Operating Officer (CDOO) and Stuart Milne as Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Ori is also expanding its technical, scientific and clinical leadership team with additional appointments.
In his role as CDOO, Kevin will lead the development of the Ori Cloud data analytics platform, accelerating Ori’s leadership in digital, cloud-based cell and gene therapy manufacturing technology platforms. As CTO, Stuart will be responsible for the proprietary hardware, software and consumable elements of Ori’s full-stack manufacturing platform. The proprietary Ori platform will result in higher throughput and higher quality manufacturing for cell and gene therapies at a more affordable cost.
Kevin is one of the few specialists in the world with experience launching a fully digital manufacturing process in CGT while in his role as Vice President of IT at Tmunity Therapeutics. This work is critical to standardizing the approach to digital platforms and electronic manufacturing systems, and will help Ori chart a path for the next phase of development for the industry as a whole.
“The cell and gene therapy industry has advanced to where data platforms and electronic manufacturing systems are becoming critical components of process discovery and commercialization of these therapies. The industry has simply outgrown the possibility of relying on paper batch records. Data sets that are structured, aggregated and analyzed using advanced tools such as multi-variate analysis and machine learning are required for the CGT industry to make the next leap forward,” said Kevin Gordon, incoming CDOO, Ori Biotech. “Achieving its mission will enable Ori and its team to play a significant part in delivering higher throughput and higher quality manufacturing for cell and gene therapies at a significantly lower cost.”
As Ori’s new CTO, Stuart brings a vast amount of experience launching technical products into the cell and gene therapy sector including experience in the management and development of Asymptote, where he played a key role in building the company as employee #2 and ultimately its sale to GE (now Cytiva).
“In cell and gene therapy, clinical development has outpaced the ability to rapidly deliver therapies to patients at scale. Manufacturing remains one of the biggest challenges blocking therapeutic delivery,” said Dr. Stuart Milne, incoming CTO, Ori Biotech. “I believe Ori’s platform will revolutionize process discovery, translation and commercialization in cell and gene therapy. By joining the world-class team at Ori, I will be able to significantly contribute to it’s mission to enable widespread patient access for this new generation of life saving therapies.”
In addition, Ori has expanded the leadership of its technical and scientific teams with a number of additional appointments. Courtney LeBlon has joined as Technical Director, NA after previously leading MSAT at Minaris Regenerative Medicine. Ori has also appointed Stephen Shapka as Lead Automation Engineer, Enas Hassan as Lead Scientist and Elena Chikunova as Process Development Scientist, who collectively bring a wealth of experience from prior roles at the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. These appointments further Ori’s expertize in the technical, scientific and clinical areas of cell and gene therapy manufacturing.
“Ori is continuing to add world-leading talent to its C-level and leadership teams. The skills and experience of Kevin, Stuart and the new technical and scientific team members will be vital as we accelerate the launch of our first generation platform and our near term R&D pipeline,” said Jason C. Foster, CEO, Ori Biotech. “Adding this quality of talent and experience to our existing team means that Ori has an even greater depth of expertize to draw on to help deliver the innovations needed to achieve our mission and democratize access to cell and gene therapies.”
About Ori Biotech
Ori is a London and New Jersey based manufacturing technology company that is pioneering process discovery, translation and 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 further 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 and data services.
Ori was founded in 2015 by Dr. Farlan Veraitch (UCL) and has brought together a seasoned Board and executive management team with over 150 years of pharmaceutical, CGT and venture building experience including CEO Jason C. Foster (Indivior), CBO Jason Jones (Miltenyi), CDOO Kevin Gordon (Tmunity), CTO Stuart Milne (Cytiva), VP Tom Heathman (Minaris), VP David Smith (Minaris) alongside expert advisors like Bruce Levine, Anthony Davies and Annalisa Jenkins.