Culture Biosciences announced that it is increasing its focus on upstream bioprocess development of new therapeutics.

The company has named new leaders for operations and commercial, engineering and product, strategy and finance, and people in a move designed to enhance Culture Biosciences’ expertise in the biotech and biopharma industries.  

“The potential of new biologic therapies, including cell and gene therapies, to improve the lives of people with severe diseases, has exploded over the past years,” said Will Patrick, CEO of Culture Biosciences. “However, developing scalable and optimized manufacturing processes remains a bottleneck for the industry. Lack of innovation in upstream bioprocess development plays an important role. Going forward, we will focus our know-how, technology and services to tackle this problem to help accelerate the development of scalable, optimized manufacturing processes for the benefit of patients.”

The company appointed Elena Cant as chief operating and commercial officer, Babu Sivaraman as vice president, engineering and product, Sumeet Agrawal vice president, strategy and finance, and Wayne Evans vice president, people.

Cant has more than 20 years of experience in corporate development, business operations, strategy, marketing, commercial, manufacturing, and R&D in large and small global biopharmaceutical companies. 

“The combined experience of Elena, Babu, Sumeet, and Wayne will help us succeed in this next chapter,” said Patrick. “I am delighted to welcome such strong leaders to our great team, and I look forward to working with them to create better tools and services for upstream bioprocess development for biotech and biopharma companies.”

“I have experienced the need for faster and more cost-efficient upstream bioprocess development in biopharma R&D first-hand. The de-risking of manufacturing timelines by completing process optimization and characterization in advance of GMP manufacturing is just one example,” said Cant. “Together with my colleagues, I am looking forward to expanding Culture Biosciences’ offerings to help more companies in this sector succeed.”