A California cell and gene therapy company is continuing its expansion. This time by hiring an industry veteran to its ranks.
Kriya Therapeutics announced Tuesday it has added a chief medical officer to its team to lead the company's clinical and medical organization, particularly in growing its pipeline of diverse gene therapy candidates across various therapeutic areas. That executive is Ilise Lombardo.
"Ilise brings a wealth of experience having led large-scale programs in large diseases, as well as rare diseases, across a range of different therapeutic areas," said Shankar Ramaswamy, co-founder and CEO of Kriya.
Last August, the company announced its plans to expand into Research Triangle Park after securing $80.5 million in Series A financing just months after its formation.
Lombardo was most recently the co-founder and chief medical officer of Arvelle Therapeutics, a Swiss-based biopharmaceutical company focused on central nervous system disorders like epilepsy. That company was valued at $960 million when it was acquired by international pharmaceutical company Angelini Pharma earlier this year.
Before that, Lombardo worked on clinical research at various other pharmaceutical companies, including an almost 9-year stint at Pfizer (NYSE: PFE).
Lombardo wasn't available to comment, but a in a prepared statement said she is "delighted to be joining Kriya and was drawn to the company’s unique vision and ambition."
“I believe that gene therapy represents one of the most promising new modalities in medicine, and I am eager to help advance Kriya’s broad portfolio of gene therapies that have the potential to transform the lives of patients suffering from a range of serious conditions," Lombardo said.
Kriya has been focused on advancing a deep and diversified pipeline of gene therapies across multiple disease areas, Ramaswamy said. With the pipeline expanding, the company is at the point of advancing those therapies toward the clinic.
That made it time to hire someone with the right clinical and medical expertise and leadership to help shepherd those programs into and through the clinic, he said.
"I think Ilise is someone who is very capable of that," Ramaswamy said. "She has deep and broad therapeutic expertise, which is something we were looking for. And she's also up for unique scientific and technical challenges that are required to do that successfully."
Ramaswamy said he also knew Lombardo to be a phenomenal individual from when he worked with her in the past. Both worked at New York-based Axovant Sciences between 2015 and 2019.
"She's a born leader," Ramaswamy said. "I think she really knows how to build a culture of an organization, lead individuals who are very talented and motivated, and I think she's able to command respect even in a setting of adversity. I've seen that firsthand, so I've just been very impressed from my interactions with her and working closely with her in the trenches in the past."
Lombardo's hire brought the company's headcount to about 75, which illustrates the company's growth considering it was a company of one at the start of the prior year.
"It's been a tremendous period of growth for us," Ramaswamy said. " ... I'm really optimistic about our ability to scale the company because of the talent that we have. I think it is one of the most exceptional teams, in my opinion, in the entire industry."
