3T Biosciences Appoints Industry Veteran John Connolly as Interim CEO

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Dec 16, 2020, 17:48 ET

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Dec. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- 3T Biosciences, an immunotherapy company, today announced that John Connolly, Ph.D. has been appointed as interim CEO. Together with the current leadership team, Dr. Connolly will lead the next round of financing with an emphasis on leveraging the company's 3T-TRACE™ technology for novel target discovery and therapeutic development.

John Connolly, Interim CEO, 3T Biosciences

"John has vast experience building and leading research and clinical programs in cell and gene therapy. It's an honor to have him guiding our program as we advance this business to the next phase of its evolution. Given his past and current experience, John has a successful track record of helping to raise capital and collaborating with innovative biopharmaceutical companies across the globe," stated Hanspeter Gerber, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer at 3T Biosciences.

Dr. Connolly serves as a member of the Board of Directors at 3T and works as Chief Scientific Officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), an investor in 3T and one of the company's most prominent research partners. He most recently served as Chief Scientific Officer at Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell therapy company conducting one of the world's largest T cell studies.

"With several research collaborations in place, I've been impressed with the team's efforts and the promising application of our technology up to this point," Dr. Connolly mentioned. "It's an honor to have the support of our Board of Directors and our internal team as we shift our near-term efforts to an emphasis on novel target discovery. I have every confidence in our platform and believe this direction is an ideal next step in our evolution as we look to maximize the value of our assets and raise capital on the path toward an initial IND filing," he continued.

Dr. Connolly has over 20 years of research experience in immunotherapy and has published more than 100 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals. As a human immunologist, his research interests focus on immune monitoring and immunometabolism. He also served as an Associate Professor at National University of Singapore and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Immunology at Baylor University, where he served on the Board of Governors for the Institute of Biomedical Sciences. In this role he helped lead 13 different research institutes across the state. Dr. Connolly invests time as Director for the IMPACT Program, a multi-disciplinary national initiative focused building cell therapy manufacturing, clinical and regulatory capability for Singapore; and is Founding Director of the Singapore Immunology Network's Immunomonitoring Platform. In these roles he is building a national cell therapy program to guide investment of the sovereign fund throughout the country and drive industry collaborations. Dr. Connolly has a Ph.D. in Immunology from Dartmouth Medical School and studied human dendritic cell biology under Dr. Michael Fanger, a renowned scientist and entrepreneur behind luminary industry companies such as Medarex, Celldex and Genmab.

About 3T Biosciences
3T Biosciences is an immunotherapy company based in South San Francisco. The company's 3T-TRACE technology applies a yeast display platform and active machine learning to identify novel targets and T-cell receptors (TCRs). This innovative approach eliminates two major challenges in advancing TCR-based therapeutics: identifying tumor specific targets and the ability to assess the specificity and cross-reactivity of a potential therapeutic TCR prior to entering the clinic. 3T Biosciences is led by an experienced management team, driven by innovation discovered at Stanford University, and supported by top investors from the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, Hayan Health Networks, CRV, Asset Management Ventures, Thiel, OS Fund, and Menlo Ventures. Together, the team at 3T Biosciences aims to discover and develop transformative therapies for oncology, autoimmune and infectious disease patients who are in dire need of additional options. For more information, please visit https://3tbiosciences.com.

SOURCE 3T Biosciences