San Francisco, March 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SAN FRANCISCO, March 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – Culture Biosciences today announced that it is increasing its focus on upstream bioprocess development of new therapeutics. New leaders for Operations and Commercial, Engineering and Product, Strategy and Finance, and People enhance Culture Biosciences’ expertise in the biotech and biopharma industries.
“The potential of new biologic therapies, including cell and gene therapies, to improve the lives of people with severe diseases, has exploded over the past years,” said Will Patrick, Chief Executive Officer of Culture Biosciences. “However, developing scalable and optimized manufacturing processes remains a bottleneck for the industry. Lack of innovation in upstream bioprocess development plays an important role. Going forward, we will focus our know-how, technology and services to tackle this problem to help accelerate the development of scalable, optimized manufacturing processes for the benefit of patients.”
The appointments of Elena Cant as Chief Operating and Commercial Officer, Babu Sivaraman as Vice President, Engineering and Product, Sumeet Agrawal as Vice President, Strategy and Finance, and Wayne Evans as Vice President, People between Q3 2022 and March 2023 underpin this enhanced focus.
“The combined experience of Elena, Babu, Sumeet, and Wayne will help us succeed in this next chapter,” added Will Patrick. “I am delighted to welcome such strong leaders to our great team, and I look forward to working with them to create better tools and services for upstream bioprocess development for biotech and biopharma companies.”
“I have experienced the need for faster and more cost-efficient upstream bioprocess development in biopharma R&D first-hand. The de-risking of manufacturing timelines by completing process optimization and characterization in advance of GMP manufacturing is just one example,” said Elena Cant, Chief Operating and Commercial Officer. “Together with my colleagues, I am looking forward to expanding Culture Biosciences’ offerings to help more companies in this sector succeed.”
Client companies can use Culture Biosciences’ platform instead of investing the time and capital to build-out in-house process development capacity. Or they can leverage it to flexibly handle fluctuations in process development needs as a result of evolving strategies or pipelines.
About the new leadership team members
Elena Cant has more than 20 years of experience in corporate development, business operations, strategy, marketing, commercial, manufacturing, and R&D in large and small global biopharmaceutical companies. She joined Culture Biosciences from TwinStrand Biosciences where she served as Chief Operating Officer. Prior to TwinStrand, Elena held senior roles at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Hospira and Mead Johnson Nutrition, McKinsey & Company (working with major pharmaceutical and medical device companies), and IBM Business Consulting Services/PWC Consulting. She serves as a Director on the Board of Directors of Societal CDMO, Inc. Elena has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a Bachelor of Science degree from the Technical University of Moldova.
Babu Sivaraman, PhD, has more than 16 years of experience in the development and commercialization of modern and differentiated bioprocessing solutions in the life sciences industry. Prior to joining Culture Biosciences, he held leading roles at Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Bioproduction group and Fluor’s Life Sciences and Advanced Manufacturing group. Babu has a PhD in Engineering and a Master of Science degree from the University of Florida, and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the University of Madras, India. He is a licensed Professional Engineer in the State of California.
Sumeet Agrawal has more than 15 years of experience in capital raising, M&A, and financial leadership in support of drug development, manufacturing and launch in the global pharmaceutical, cell therapy, medical device, and synthetic biology industries. Prior to joining Culture Biosciences, he held leading Finance roles at Instil Bio, Intersect ENT, and Genentech. Sumeet has an MBA from Indiana University, a Master of Science degree from the University of Toledo and a Bachelor degree from the University of Mumbai, India.
Wayne Evans, SPHR-SCP, has more than 30 years of HR leadership experience in the sectors of IT, network security, data storage, and laser-based MEMS sensing and display, and more recently in life sciences companies driving innovation in clinical trials management and genomic technologies. He joins Culture Biosciences from TwinStrand Biosciences where he served as Head of HR. Prior to TwinStrand, Wayne held leading roles in private and public companies at different development stages with different business strategies, including M&A, and regional, national, and international expansion. He has an MBA from Seattle University, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Whitman College, in Walla Walla, WA.
About Culture Biosciences’ propriety upstream bioprocess development platform
Customers design and monitor their experiments, collaborate on projects, and access and analyze data on a fully integrated platform that combines:
- 250mL bioreactors and 5L bioreactors, each with single-use vessels for mammalian cell lines or microbial fermentation. The 250mL reactors are mounted in mobile cart modules of four units.
- Dedicated and proprietary, cloud-based software to design and monitor experiments remotely, and to integrate and analyze data in one place. Remote, hybrid or multi-location teams can collaborate virtually on this platform.
- A suite of proprietary tools for process design and data analysis. These tools include a dynamic data analysis suite that enables rapid analysis and understanding of process and offline analytical data.
More than 70 client companies have trusted Culture Biosciences’ platform with their upstream bioprocess development in the 5 years since beginning operations in 2018. Customers include large, top-10 biopharma companies, leading CDMOs, and emerging and growing biotech clients.
About Culture Biosciences
Culture Biosciences is dedicated to innovation in upstream bioprocess development. Culture’s goal is to build new tools and services that improve the performance, time-to-develop, and cost-efficiency of therapeutic manufacturing processes. The company’s proprietary, fully integrated platform combines bioreactors, cloud-based software, and services to offer client companies around the world access to predictable, and scalable bioprocess development. Culture Biosciences was founded in 2016 and is based in South San Francisco, CA. www.culturebiosciences.com
