Appia Bio Expands Leadership Team With Sylvaine Cases, Ph.D. Appointed Chief Business Officer and Alex Babayan, Ph.D. as Vice President, Head of Regulatory Affairs

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Jun 28, 2023, 09:15 ET

Dr. Cases is a proven life sciences leader with more than 20 years' business development and R&D experience including Johnson & Johnson Oncology and Sanofi

Former Kite and Instil Bio regulatory affairs executive, Alex Babayan, Ph.D. named vice president, head of regulatory affairs

LOS ANGELES, June 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Appia Bio, Inc., a biotechnology company developing allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-engineered invariant natural killer T (CAR-NKT) cell therapies from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) for patients with cancer, today announced the appointments of Sylvaine Cases, Ph.D. as chief business officer (CBO) and Alex Babayan, Ph.D. as vice president, head of regulatory affairs.

Sylvaine Cases, Ph.D., Appia Bio chief business officer

Dr. Cases is a proven life sciences executive who brings more than two decades of research and business development experience, including leadership positions at LynxBio, Johnson & Johnson, and Sanofi. Dr. Babayan brings more than a decade of global regulatory affairs experience in cancer cell therapy including allogeneic cell therapy, at companies including Kite, a Gilead company.

Appia Bio is focused on discovering and developing off-the-shelf allogeneic cell therapies across a broad array of cancer indications, utilizing a scalable technology platform with the goal to increase access for patients. With its ACUA (Appia Cells Utilized for Allogeneic) technology platform, Appia Bio leverages the biology of lymphocyte development with CAR and T cell receptor (TCR) gene engineering to generate CAR-NKT cells from HSCs.

"We are delighted to have Sylvaine and Alex join the Appia Bio team. Sylvaine is a thoughtful business executive with deep understanding of our industry from both sides of the table. Alex brings long-term considered insight based on his broad global regulatory affairs experience in cell therapy. They will be instrumental strategic leaders as we advance our programs to create novel, curative, and accessible cell therapies for patients with cancer," said JJ Kang, Ph.D., co-founder and chief executive officer of Appia Bio.

"Appia Bio's ACUA cell therapy platform has the potential to transform the cell therapy paradigm. Joining Appia Bio at this important moment for the company is most exciting. I look forward to helping develop and expand a portfolio of ACUA cell therapy products with current and future partners, as well as advance our internal programs," said Dr. Cases.

Dr. Cases joins Appia Bio from LynxBio, where she was CBO, and led strategy and partnering to advance immuno-oncology programs using LynxBio's drug discovery platform. Previously, she was vice president at Janssen Oncology, driving innovative and strategic partnerships to further develop Janssen's industry-leading portfolio across oncology modalities. At Sanofi, she led the West Coast team to source and execute a variety of strategic alliances through collaborations, partnerships, and investments. Earlier in her career, Dr. Cases' led research teams at Arete Therapeutics and Cytokinetics in pharmacology and translational oncology respectively. Prior to moving to the private sector, she held an academic appointment at the Gladstone Institutes, University of California, San Francisco, where she focused on metabolism and the tumor microenvironment. Dr. Cases received her Ph.D. in molecular oncology from the Institut Gustave Roussy for Cancer Research, Villejuif/University of Paris VII.

Dr. Babayan joins Appia Bio from Instil Bio where he was vice president and head of regulatory affairs. In this position, he directed and coordinated all global regulatory affairs activities for Instil Bio's portfolio of cancer cell therapy programs. Previously, Dr. Babayan was the director of regulatory affairs at Kite, a Gilead company, where he led the company's first two investigational new drug (IND) applications – Yescarta^® (axicabtagene ciloleucel) and Tecartus^® (brexucabtagene autoleucel) and subsequently led all Regulatory CMC activities for Yescarta^® from Phase 1 through BLA submission, while serving as the global regulatory lead for brexucabtagene autoleucel, and leading global regulatory for Kite's allogeneic programs. Earlier in his career he worked at Amgen. Dr. Babayan received his Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from the University of California, Irvine.

About Appia Bio
Appia Bio is a preclinical-stage biotechnology company based in Los Angeles, California. Founded in 2020, Appia Bio is focused on discovering and developing engineered allogeneic cell therapies across a broad array of indications with a scalable technology platform that can increase access for patients. With its ACUA (Appia Cells Utilized for Allogeneic) technology platform, Appia Bio leverages the biology of lymphocyte development with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and T cell receptor (TCR) gene engineering to generate CAR-engineered invariant natural killer T (CAR-NKT) cells from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). The ACUA platform was developed from groundbreaking research in the laboratory of Lili Yang, Ph.D., at University of California, Los Angeles, and collaboration with Appia Bio's other scientific founders, David Baltimore, Ph.D. at Caltech and Pin Wang, Ph.D. at University of Southern California. For more information, please visit www.appiabio.com.

SOURCE Appia Bio