ST. LOUIS & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Wugen, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a pipeline of allogeneic cell therapies to treat a broad range of hematological and solid tumor malignancies, today announced the appointment of biotech executive and cell therapy veteran Natalie Mount, Ph.D., as Chair of the Board of Directors. Dr. Mount has over 25 years of biopharmaceutical experience, including more than a decade of leadership in cell and gene therapy manufacturing and early clinical development. Dr. Mount succeeds John McKearn, Ph.D., who will transition to Board Director.

“Natalie has an exceptional degree of strategic and technical experience in cell therapy product development, and her leadership as board chair will be invaluable at this important time as we advance our pipeline, business, and growth objectives,” said Dan Kemp, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Wugen. “We are thrilled to welcome her wealth of expertise to the Board and look forward to her contributions as we progress our novel memory NK cell therapy platform and pipeline of off-the-shelf immunotherapies through clinical development.”

Dr. Kemp added, “We are also deeply thankful to John for his tremendous leadership in maturing Wugen from its inception to the clinical-stage company we are today. We are grateful to have him remain on the board and continue to guide our growth.”

Dr. Mount was the Chief Executive Officer of Adaptate Biotherapeutics from inception until its recent acquisition by Takeda. Adaptate specialized in the discovery and development of novel therapeutic antibodies to modulate gamma delta (γδ) T cell mediated immune responses. Prior to Adaptate, Dr. Mount was Chief Scientific Officer of GammaDelta Therapeutics (acquired by Takeda), where she was a founding member of the management team and led the company’s research and development operation to build its allogeneic cell therapy platform. Prior to GammaDelta, she was the Chief Clinical Officer at the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult where she was responsible for translational, regulatory, and clinical development activities across a broad portfolio of cell-based therapies. Dr. Mount began her career at Pfizer, where she spent 16 years leading development activities across various therapeutic areas, including Pfizer’s late pre-clinical and clinical portfolio of cell therapies. Dr. Mount has previously served on the Boards of several cell and gene therapy companies and is currently an Independent Director at Rinri Therapeutics. She holds a first-class degree in natural sciences from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from University College, London.

About Wugen

Wugen, Inc., is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing the next generation of off-the-shelf memory natural killer (NK) and CAR-T cell therapies for cancer. Wugen is leveraging its proprietary Moneta^TM platform and deep genomic engineering expertise to pioneer a new class of memory NK cell therapies to treat hematological and solid tumor malignancies. For more information, please visit www.wugen.com.

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