Endpoints News released its 2022 Women in Biopharma list, which recognizes 20 of the top women leading biopharma research and development (R&D).
This year, the publication received more than 500 entries and selected 20 women “who have blazed trails and are still promising to reshape biopharma R&D for years to come.”
Many amazing finalists are featured this year, but three in particular stood out for their ties to the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Those three are:
Jennifer Gordon, Ph.D. — Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Excision BioTherapeutics
Dr. Jennifer Gordon and the team at Excision BioTherapeutics have developed a therapeutic candidate called EBT-101. CIRM is funding a clinical trial to test EBT-101 in patients with HIV.
This is the first clinical study using the CRISPR-based platform for genome editing and excision of the latent form of HIV-1, the most common form of the virus that causes AIDS in the US and Europe.
The goal of the treatment is to eliminate or sufficiently reduce the hidden reservoirs of the virus in the body to the point where the individual is effectively cured.
Barbara Wirostko — Co-founder and CMO at Qlaris Bio
Barbara Wirostko is the co-founder and CMO at Qlaris Bio, a clinical-stage biotech company committed to developing therapies for patients suffering from serious and debilitating ophthalmic diseases.
In addition to her work there, Barbara is a member of CIRM’s Grants Working Group (GWG), which evaluates the scientific merit of all applications submitted to CIRM and provides funding recommendations to the CIRM board.
In the Endpoints News profile, Wirostko shares that she was inspired by her father, also an ophthalmologist, and his desire to help people.
“I think that was the other thing that really drew me to ophthalmology — is that you were able to work with patients, make a difference in people’s lives, also have a surgical as well as a medical aspect, practicing medicine, and then also have a family,” she said.
Dr. Lili Yang – UCLA associate professor, Co-founder of Appia Bio and Immune Design
We’ve written about Dr. Lili Yang’s work on the Stem Cellar blog.
Dr. Yang at UCLA was recently awarded $1.4 million from CIRM to develop an off‑the‑shelf cell therapy for ovarian cancer, which causes more deaths than any other cancer of the female reproductive system.
With support from several CIRM grants, Dr. Yang developed a platform that uses healthy donor blood stem cells to produce scalable, off‑the‑shelf iNKT cells. This work led to the creation of Appia Bio and discussions with the FDA about clinical testing.
“I dream of making cell therapy off‑the‑shelf so it can reach all cancer patients in need,” Dr. Yang says. “Current therapies treat patients one by one, leading to high costs and limited access. Centralized manufacturing would create pre‑qualified products ready for broad use, regardless of a patient’s age, gender, or location.”
CIRM congratulates all the extraordinary women featured in the Endpoints News 2022 Women in Biopharma list. To see all the finalists, read the official announcement here or visit the Endpoints News website.