Date: Jun 06, 2018 Author: Don McCormick Source: Biospace (
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South San Francisco-based Senti Biosciences is getting a new Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer. Former Sangamo Therapeutics Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Curt Herberts will join Senti later this month.
"We are excited to have Curt join the team at this critical time. He brings with him a wealth of experience developing advanced therapies and building partnerships with leading players throughout the biopharma industry," said Senti Biosciences CEO and co-founder Tim Lu.
Founded in 2016, Senti Biosciences develops adaptive cell and gene therapies to treat the most complex and challenging diseases, such as hard-to-treat cancers. Using its synthetic biology technology platform, the company designs synthetic gene circuits capable of responding dynamically to different disease states and biological settings.
Senti's decision to hire Herberts is a smart move as they develop their internal pipeline of therapeutic programs while pursuing partnerships for additional applications using its technology. During his time at Sangamo, Herberts led a number of corporate development transactions including global collaborations with Shire in 2012, Biogen in 2014 and Pfizer in 2017 and 2018. Herberts also led the team responsible for executing the recent $3 billion deal with Kite, a Gilead company, focused on genome editing of CAR-T cell therapies for oncology applications.
"The Senti team is pushing the boundaries of synthetic biology and the ability to create cell and gene therapies that can thoughtfully respond to different biological problems in vivo," Herberts said. "They are passionate about solving critical medical needs that can't be addressed without this technology. I look forward to ensuring this vision becomes a reality."
The hiring announcement follows the publication of a ground-breaking paper in the journal Cell by Senti scientific co-founders Wilson Wong and Jim Collins. In the paper, Wong and Collins introduced the SUPRA CAR-T system, a split, universal, and programmable CAR-T system that will be licensed exclusively to Senti for further development. To realize the broad impact of its platform, Senti is looking for opportunities to strategically partner with companies interested in adaptive therapies.
