Fabian Gerlinghaus

Fabian Gerlinghaus is co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cellares, a San Francisco, California-based biotechnology company that created the first end-to-end, fully automated platform for cell therapy manufacturing and quality control. An aerospace engineer by training, he channeled his strong sense of purpose into a passion for solving one of the industry’s most heartbreaking challenges: how to ensure that patients whose lives could be saved by FDA-approved cell therapies don’t die while waiting for them due to manufacturing bottlenecks. With 10+ years of experience as an innovator and a leader, Fabian has established a track record of successfully assembling top-performing teams to drive novel bioprocessing technologies from ideation to commercial readiness. Fabian, along with Omar Kurdi, started Cellares in 2019. Since then, the company has raised more than $355 million and partnered with major pharmaceutical companies like Bristol Myers Squibb and small biotechs like Cabaletta Bio. The company now has more than 250 employees, with further growth expected as Cellares expands into Asia and Europe. Prior to Cellares, Fabian served as Chief Innovation Officer at Synthego, where he co-invented the company’s proprietary RNA synthesizer technology and took this device from whiteboard sketch to production-ready instrument within two years, enabling the company to be the first to market with its CRISPR/Cas9 product portfolio. Fabian holds a master’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Munich and an honors degree in technology management from the Center for Digital Technology and Management, Munich.