Zelluna Immunotherapy has announced the appointment of Kenneth LaMontagne as CBO (Chief Business Officer).

“I am delighted to have Ken join Zelluna – he brings a rare blend of scientific depth, extensive cell therapy business development expertise spanning pharma and biotech and an impressive deal making track record. Ken is ideally suited to strengthen our business development activities, partnering initiatives and US presence and we are thrilled that our differentiated TCR-NK platform, pipeline, experienced board and management team, have attracted him to join our pioneering journey,” says Namir Hassan, CEO of Zelluna. “The last decade has seen significant strides in the treatment of solid tumors. TCR based therapies have led the charge over other types of modalities. However, most patients relapse probably due to the limitation of targeting heterogenous tumors with a single targeting system. At Zelluna, we believe that the blend of solid tumor targeting with TCRs and innate targeting by NKs brings a multi-pronged approach and novel therapeutic biology, which, coupled with multiple dosing possibilities has the potential to overcome the hurdles emerging for other cell therapies and drive deep and durable clinical responses in patients with solid cancers.”

Kenneth LaMontage

Kenneth LaMontagne brings more than 23 years of broad oncology experiences from both biotech and pharma companies including Novartis, BMS and Legend Biotech and will be spearheading Zelluna’s business development activities. Ken joins Zelluna after spending the past 11 years in business development roles within the cell and gene therapy space, following the Novartis and UPenn alliance. Ken received his PhD from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook while his research dissertation was completed at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories. He continued with his post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He obtained an Executive MBA from Rutgers Business School and completed the Executive Management Program at Wharton Business School.

“I look forward to working closely with an experienced executive team, a distinguished Board of Directors and the Zelluna team to capture interest in the promising development of TCR-NK cell therapies for solid tumors. I’m impressed by the progress that Zelluna has made with their TCR-NK platform and commitment to optimization of their pipeline through engineering TCRs and developing a bespoke and robust manufacturing process. Zelluna’s innovative and differentiated platform holds great promise to advance more effective treatments for cancer patients in need,” said Kenneth LaMontagne, CBO at Zelluna.

Photo of Kenneth LaMontagne: www.zelluna.com