Precision BioSciences Announces Senior Leadership Promotions and Organizational Changes

Precision BioSciences, a clinical stage gene editing company developing ARCUS-based ex vivo allogeneic CAR T and in vivo gene editing therapies, announced a promotion and organizational changes within the Company’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT).

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“At this time in our company life cycle, I believe Precision BioSciences has the right leadership team in place and is poised to continue taking important steps toward becoming a commercial stage company. I’m very enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead for Precision and me”

The company announced the promotion of Neil Leatherbury to Senior Vice President, Head of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC) reporting directly to Michael Amoroso, President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Leatherbury leads Precision’s teams responsible for gene delivery, analytical development, process development, manufacturing, supply chain and manufacturing science and technology.

“I’m pleased to announce the promotion of Neil to lead our CMC teams as member of the SLT. He has done an excellent job leading his team through a successful allogeneic CAR T manufacturing optimization process that improved our cell manufacturing platform resulting in enhanced CAR T attributes that are associated with efficacy and safety,” said Michael Amoroso. “This work was instrumental in achieving favorable Type C feedback from the FDA on the company’s CMC processes and analytical methods in support of late-stage development for azercabtagene zapreleucel (azer-cel), our lead clinical stage allogeneic CAR T cell candidate. We look forward to building on this success with our CAR T programs in 2023.”

In addition, the company announced that Derek Jantz, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, has announced his intentions to gradually step away from his current day-to-day responsibilities at the Company to pursue other personal and professional interests while continuing to support the Company’s external relationships, including existing and potential business development partners. He will assume an advisory role as Co-Founder, Chief Science Advisor. In this capacity, Dr. Jantz is expected to provide ongoing platform advice and support to the Company’s executive team, as well as the Board of Directors’ Science and Technology Committee, while also providing continuity to ongoing collaborations and assisting with development of new partnerships.

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Co-founder Jeff Smith, Ph.D. continues to lead the Company’s research strategy and day-to day management of the research function in his role as Chief Research Officer, reporting directly to the CEO, as previously announced in September 2022. In addition to these ongoing responsibilities, Jeff will assume primary leadership of the company’s joint steering committees with Lilly and Novartis and will serve as the primary scientific lead for potential new business development partners.

“Derek has been instrumental to Precision since its founding in 2006. Jeff and Derek began the Company and have built it from the ground up on the basis of the ARCUS gene editing platform, scaling up research and development, advancing programs into the clinic and pushing new in vivo gene editing programs toward first clinical programs,” said Michael Amoroso. “For 17 years, they have put Precision’s interests first to reach our current stage of development. Jeff and Derek have recruited, trained and developed our new generation of scientists who are leading many of our research functions. As a result of their work to develop our bench strength and secure partnerships with Lilly and Novartis, we are now in a position where Derek will have more time to explore his other personal and professional interests, while providing welcome advice on the ARCUS platform to support our future business needs. I’m thankful for all Derek has accomplished for Precision and very pleased that Jeff will continue to lead our research scientists to advance our ARCUS platform.”

“At this time in our company life cycle, I believe Precision BioSciences has the right leadership team in place and is poised to continue taking important steps toward becoming a commercial stage company. I’m very enthusiastic about the opportunities ahead for Precision and me,” said Dr. Jantz. “I look forward to continuing to work closely with the company in achieving continued success for ARCUS. As a co-developer of the technology and a significant shareholder, I derive great personal satisfaction from making strides towards bringing ARCUS-based therapies to patients in need. As such, I’m very much looking forward to the day when the first ARCUS-based in vivo gene editing program enters the clinic. At the same time, I’m eagerly watching as our lead CAR T program moves steadily toward a clinical inflection point.”

“I deeply appreciate Derek’s friendship and partnership over the last 17 years as we sought to develop and advance a gene editing tool that elegantly mimics a natural homing endonuclease for therapeutic gene editing. We now have preclinical and clinical data supporting the ARCUS platform,” said Dr. Jeff Smith, Chief Research Officer. “As we developed the technology, we also built a top-notch and deep scientific team that has achieved major learnings with ARCUS and is propelling current programs and future applications of the technology into new disease areas. I am excited to continue leading this team that is equally passionate about our ultimate goal of bringing new potential cures to patients.”

Mr. Leatherbury joined Precision BioSciences in 2017 and has served in a variety of roles within Precision BioSciences’ CMC organization, including his most recent role as the Vice President of CMC. Neil brings more than 25 years of life science experience to this role with experience in CMC operations, pharmaceutical development and product development. Prior to joining Precision BioSciences, Neil worked at Mirna Therapeutics, Azaya Therapeutics, Smith & Nephew and Procter & Gamble.

Dr. Smith is one of the true pioneers in genome editing and has made some of the key observations that led to the first successful engineered editing nucleases. Jeff received his graduate degree from Johns Hopkins University, where he developed and characterized custom nucleases for genome engineering. Continuing his work in protein engineering at Duke University, Jeff helped create the foundation for Precision’s ARCUS genome editing technology. He is an inventor on more than 75 foundational, issued patents involving the production and use of genome editing tools.

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