CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Catamaran Bio, Inc., a biotechnology company developing allogeneic CAR-NK cell therapies to treat patients with significant unmet medical need, today announced the appointment of Scott Holmes, MS, MBA, as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Holmes has 20 years of experience in finance, strategy, and operations, including roles as Chief Financial Officer of multiple biotechnology companies where he led high-value financings and transactions.

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Catamaran Bio CFO Scott Holmes (Photo: Business Wire)

“We are delighted to welcome Scott to our leadership team, and his extensive experience in both private and public companies will be invaluable as we continue to advance and grow Catamaran,” said Alvin Shih, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Catamaran Bio. “Scott is a seasoned leader with a proven track record, and I look forward to partnering with him to execute on Catamaran’s financing and partnership strategy, which will support our progress toward the clinic with our differentiated CAR-NK programs.”

Most recently, Mr. Holmes was CFO of Disarm Therapeutics, where he was responsible for all financial operations and played a key role in the company’s acquisition by Eli Lilly in October 2020. Previously, he was CFO of the publicly-traded cell therapy biotech, Kiadis Pharma, including leading the company’s acquisition of CytoSen Therapeutics. Earlier, he spent four years as CFO of Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, where he executed multiple high-value financial offerings and oversaw the merger of Keryx into Akebia Therapeutics. Mr. Holmes was also previously Senior Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations at AMAG Pharmaceuticals. He holds a BA in History from Middlebury College and an MS/MBA from Northeastern University.

“This is an exciting time to join Catamaran as the company makes progress with its differentiated CAR-NK cell platform and moves its first cell therapies toward the clinic,” said Mr. Holmes. “I am eager to leverage my experience to support the company’s growth, and I look forward to working with the team to capitalize on the tremendous potential for Catamaran to bring innovation to the CAR-NK space and advance a new class of cell therapies for cancer patients.”

About the TAILWIND™ Platform

Catamaran’s TAILWIND™ Platform integrates proprietary capabilities to create novel, allogeneic CAR‑NK cell therapies by harnessing the natural cancer-fighting properties of natural killer (NK) cells and enhancing them with the power of synthetic biology and innovative NK cell engineering and manufacturing. With the TAILWIND Platform, CAR-NK cells are programmed with NK cell-specific CAR architectures and potency-boosting switches to neutralize the hostile tumor microenvironment and enable efficacy against diverse cancer types, especially solid tumors. Additionally, the TAILWIND Platform includes proprietary, non-viral NK cell engineering technology for efficient modification of NK cells with customized genetic programs enabled by synthetic biology. Catamaran’s CAR-NK cell therapies use healthy donor cells that are engineered and manufactured for off‑the‑shelf use, unlike current CAR-T cell therapies that use a patient’s own genetically modified T cells and require a customized, multi-week manufacturing process.

About Catamaran Bio

Catamaran Bio is developing novel, off-the-shelf CAR-NK cell therapies designed to treat a broad range of cancers, including solid tumors. Our proprietary capabilities enable us to harness the natural cancer-fighting properties of NK cells and enhance and tailor their effectiveness with the power of synthetic biology and innovative non-viral cell engineering. We are using our TAILWIND^TM Platform, an integrated suite of technologies, to specifically address the end-to-end methods of engineering, processing and manufacturing NK cells and rapidly advance our pipeline of CAR-NK cell therapy programs. Our team combines experienced biopharmaceutical leadership with founding scientists who are pioneers in NK cell biology, engineering, manufacturing and clinical application. Catamaran is backed by leading financial and corporate investors, including SV Health Investors, Sofinnova Partners, Lightstone Ventures, Takeda Ventures and Astellas Venture Management. For more information, please visit www.catamaranbio.com and follow us on LinkedIn and @CatamaranBio on Twitter.

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