VINTABIO - Key Persons
Dr. Radspinner has spent nearly a decade leading the global marketing and sales efforts at top bioproduction companies including GE Healthcare Life Sciences (Cytiva) and Thermo Fisher Scientific. Radspinner joins VintaBio from ILC Dover, a New Mountain Capital portfolio company, where he served as president for the organization's biotherapeutics portfolio. Previously he was Vice President of the Americas at Cytiva, a provider of life sciences products and services. David worked at Eli Lilly & Co. and Sanofi, developing analytical methodologies, drug products, and processes after receiving his PhD from the University of Arizona in Analytical Chemistry.
Dr. Kendall Carey obtained a B.S. in Biochemistry at The Ohio State University and a Ph.D. in Cell Biology at Oregon Health and Sciences University. He did his post-doctoral studies at Genentech in the Molecular Oncology Department working on ErbB/HER Biology and Therapeutics, including Herceptin®, Omnitarg/Perjeta®, and Tarceva®. Following his post-doc, he worked at Amgen, MedImmune, and Genentech developing and implementing bioassay and immunoassay methods for release and characterization testing as well as setting up viral core facilities to support cell line engineering for research and analytical method development. He has held roles of increasing responsibility during his career in the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical industry from Genentech to Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Spark Therapeutics, Precision Biosciences and now VintaBio. He has over 30 years of experience developing, optimizing, validating, training/transferring, and managing analytical methods and QC testing that have supported candidate selection, structure-function studies, and GxP release and stability testing of biologics, including Cell and Gene therapies. He has authored regulatory CMC sections in support of over 30 successful INDs/IMPDs, 3 BLA/MAAs, and supported analytical product lifecycle management.
Dr. Shangzhen Zhou was the Director of the CAROT Research Vector Core (RVC) and has more than 3.5 decades experience in biomedical research. Dr. Zhou's teams produced all of the pre-clinical vectors for Zolgensma® and also helped with setting up the GMP facilities. She earned her M.D. from Hunan Medical University, China, and trained in gene therapy research at Indiana University. She is an internationally recognized expert in AAV gene therapy research, particularly in innovations of AAV viral vector production. She was instrumental in developing the first high titer vector production method with a rapid, serotype-independent, low cost, and high yield purification protocol. Prior to joining CAROT, Dr. Zhou directed the Research Vector Core at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where she worked with CAROT and CHOP investigators to develop the first batch of AAV that would become Luxturna®. Prior to CHOP, she worked at Avigen and Somatix and served as principal scientist at Chiron
Job Titles:
- Director, Analytical Method Development
Dr. Yifeng Chen obtained her Medical Degree and a Master's Degree in Physiology from Medical College of Soochow University and has over 12 years of experience in Gene Therapy. Yifeng was one of the key members in Luxturna's success, which is the first FDA approved Gene Therapy for treating RPE65 deficient blindness patients. Dr. Chen has worked at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and most recently Spark Therapeutics, where she participated in IND submissions for Hemophilia A and Hemophilia B clinical trials.
Mr. Junwei Sun obtained a B.S. in Microbiology at University of Texas, Austin, an M.S. in Immunology at the University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A. from the University of Western Ontario. He has over 17 years of experience in chaperoning cell and gene therapy IND programs, starting with a foundational role at establishing the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics (CCMT) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. During his tenure at CCMT, he was instrumental in moving forward a number of preclinical, clinical studies and vector production operations which led to the approval of the first gene therapy for a genetic disease, Luxturna. After being a co-founding team member at Spark Therapeutics, he was then recruited to the University of Pennsylvania to help build the Center for Advanced Retinal and Ocular Therapeutics (CAROT). At CAROT, he established GMP Operations from the ground up, and supervised several ocular gene therapy programs at both clinical and non-clinical stages. Junwei Sun has vast experience in IND project management, regulatory management, translational research and GMP operations.
Mr. William Righter obtained a B.S. in Biochemistry at Temple University, He has over 11 years of experience in cell and gene therapy experience, starting at the Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapeutics (CCMT) at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. During his tenure at CCMT, he was involved Vector Production Operations for both pre-clinical and clinical programs, including early CAR-T studies. He then moved to the University of Pennsylvania at the Center for Advanced Retinal and Ocular Therapeutics (CAROT). At CAROT, he was involved in the setup of non-clinical and GMP production facilities and supervised the production of AAV and Lentiviral vector programs.
Job Titles:
- Head of Quality Assurance
Ms. Angela Hughes obtained a BS Biology from the University of Scranton. She has 25 years of pharmaceutical experience supporting a variety of quality roles, specifically in the area of auditing, quality operations and other compliance activities. For the past 5 years, she has served in a leadership role for several key cell and gene therapy organizations, and actively participated in commercialization readiness activities for the first CAR T therapy approved, Kymriah.