Next-gen T-cell player Neogene bolsters U.S. team, adding Bristol Myers vet as COO

Brent Pfeiffenberger grew up at Bristol Myers Squibb, developing as a leader over a nearly 19-year tenure at the Big Pharma. Now, he’s taking his experience into the biotech world as the chief operating officer of Neogene Therapeutics, a transatlantic biotech working on next-generation T-cell therapies. 

The company uncloaked last September with $110 million from some big-name backers, including Arie Belldegrun, M.D., and David Chang, M.D., Ph.D., the former Kite Pharma executives who now run another next-gen cell therapy biotech, Allogene Therapeutics. Its co-founders are Ton Schumacher, Ph.D., a renowned T-cell engineering expert and CEO Crasten Linnemann, Ph.D., the duo behind T-Cell Factory, a company Kite snapped up before it became part of Gilead.

Neogene is working on personalized engineered T-cell therapies for solid tumors, an area where CAR-T and other cell therapies have run into hurdles. A key obstacle is that targets found in solid tumor cells are often also found in normal cells, making it hard to kill cancer without harming other tissues.

RELATED: IconOVir uncloaks with $77M, ex-Forty Seven CEO and cancer-killing viruses out of Salk Institute

Neogene’s engineered T-cells target neoantigens, or mutated proteins, found as cancer cells as a result of cancer-linked mutations. The company identifies T-cell receptor (TCR) genes in routine tumor samples and then engineers those isolated TCR genes into the T cells of cancer patients, creating a cell therapy that can hunt down a patient’s specific tumor.

Pfeiffenberger, who was most recently senior vice president of U.S. oncology at BMS, was struck by how far Neogene has come since it set up shop.

“In a very short amount of time, it became a leader in the neoantigen-specific T-cell therapy space. I wanted to be part of that journey,” he said. “What drew me most were three things: the pure ambition of the science, the brilliant team and the support network behind them, and the opportunity to take my experience and help shape a company from the ground up that can have such a meaningful impact on patients.”

Pfeiffenberger joins a growing team at Neogene’s U.S. headquarters in Santa Monica, California, including a trio of Kite alums: Mauro Avanzi, M.D., Ph.D., vice president of clinical development; Arianne Perez Garcia, Ph.D., vice president of translational sciences; and Kanti Thirumoorthy, Ph.D., vice president of technical operations. 

RELATED: Next-gen T-cell cancer player Neogene raises $110M with help from some big-name players

The company’s discovery team remains in Amsterdam, its European headquarters, while its translational science, process development and manufacturing teams will be based in Santa Monica.

“I am eager in this position to establish and scale operations in the U.S. and Europe. It will be one of my main priorities to make sure we can scale opeartions to achieve the big milestones ahead of us,” Pfeiffenberger said.

One of those milestones will be Neogene’s first human trials, for which it plans to file applications later this year.