Chimeric Therapeutics is a clinical stage cell therapy company focused on bringing the promise of cell therapy to life for more patients with cancer.
We believe that cellular therapies have the promise to cure cancer not just delay disease progression.
To bring that promise to life for more patients, Chimeric’s world class team of cell therapy pioneers and experts is focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of the most innovative and promising cell therapies.
We exist to create a better future for patients with cancer. We strive to always see the world through their eyes and are relentless in pursuit of our mission knowing that they are waiting.
We are honest, transparent and committed to choosing what is right – not what is easy – for our patients, stakeholders and employees. We take responsibility for our actions, do everything in our power to meet our commitments and own the accountability we have to those we serve.
We embrace and harness innovation in pursuit of our mission. We are curious and strategically creative, never settling for what’s easy, instead focusing on what’s possible. If there is a better way, we’ll find it.
We ground ourselves in science, engage with passion and make excellence our habit not our goal. We embrace the urgency of our mission, going above and beyond the call of duty every day, because that’s who we are.
We are authentic and vulnerable human beings who strive to always be our best. We speak openly, give and earn trust daily and listen to learn. We are accountable to ourselves and to each other, show up for our successes and failures and never take ourselves too seriously.
Chimeric Therapeutics is led by a team of cell therapy pioneers and experts who are committed to bringing the promise of cell therapy to life for more patients with cancer. Their collective experience in cell therapy development and commercialization makes Chimeric uniquely positioned to translate innovative science into curative therapies for patients.
Paul Hopper is the Executive Chairman and Founder of Chimeric Therapeutics. Paul is an inspired bioentrepreneur that has been instrumental in founding several successful biotechnology companies including Imugene, Viralytics, Prescient and now Chimeric Therapeutics.
Paul has over 25 years of experience in the biotech, healthcare and life sciences sectors serving as the Chairman, non-executive director or CEO of more than fourteen companies in the United States, Australia and Asia.
Paul has extensive experience fund raising in Australia, Asia, the US and Europe along with proven expertise in corporate governance, risk and strategy.
Paul was the former Chairman of Viralytics when it was acquired by Merck in 2018 and is currently on the board of 3 ASX listed companies.
Dr Rebecca McQualter is the Chief Operating Officer of Chimeric Therapeutics. Rebecca brings senior experience from roles at Novartis, Amgen and GlaxoSmithKline, and holds a Doctor of Philosophy in Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine from Monash University.
Rebecca has an extensive commercial career with exposure to many aspects of international pharmaceutical operations. Mostly recently, as the Head of Strategic Access at Novartis Australia, Rebecca developed new commercial partnerships, built external networks spanning policy makers, research institutes and NGOs, and engaged with federal and state government, trade associations and other stakeholders to implement policy and process improvements. She led the establishment of key partnerships for Novartis with Telstra Health, Monash University and Wesfarmers Health.
Prior to her role at Novartis, Rebecca was Country Medical Head for Bioverativ ANZ, a $5 billion Biogen spinout focusing on rare diseases. She played a key role in establishing business processes and strategies, setting up medical information/pharmacovigilance call centres, and conducting payer negotiations, aiding in Bioverativ’s multi-billion-dollar acquisition by Sanofi in 2018.
She has also previously held leadership roles at Amgen, where she initially worked in Australia before moving to the United States to take on the role of Senior Marketing Manager for Strategic Operations in Oncology at Amgen’s Thousand Oaks, California office.
Further big pharma experience came at GlaxoSmithKline, where Rebecca worked as a Medical Adviser and learning from the ground up as a Primary Care Sales Representative, where she contributed to launching two major brands.
Jason B Litten MD is the Chief Medical Officer at Chimeric Therapeutics. Jason is an expert in cell therapy and clinical oncology with experience developing some of the first CAR T, TCR and NK cell clinical programs. Jason also has experience leading the clinical and preclinical development of numerous therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and orally available cancer medicines.
Jason joined Chimeric after serving as the Chief Medical Officer at Artiva Biotherapeutics where led built and led Artiva’s clinical and regulatory functions. During his time at Artiva, Jason contributed to launching two clinical NK cell therapy programs, raising over $200 million in private financing and
establishing two foundational corporate partnerships.
Prior to Artiva, Jason was the Vice President of Clinical Development overseeing Solid Tumor Programs at Juno Therapeutics. Before Juno, he was Vice President of Clinical Development at Clovis Oncology. Jason started his industry career in Oncology Clinical Development at Amgen Inc.
Jason holds a BS from Cornell University and MD from Emory University. After medical school, he completed a Residency in General Pediatrics at University of Miami and a Clinical Fellowship in Pediatric Hematology & Oncology at UT Southwestern. Since leaving academic medicine almost 15 years ago, Dr Litten has been dedicated to developing new medicines for cancer patients in the biotech and pharmaceutical field.
Dr Eliot Bourk is the Chief Business Officer and Head of External Innovation at Chimeric Therapeutics. Eliot is a cell therapy expert with over 5 years leadership experience in the development and commercialization of cell therapies from early to late stage.
Eliot joined Chimeric from Kite Pharmaceuticals where he led early commercial strategy, responsible for the optimization of a portfolio of early-stage cell therapy pipeline assets and for guiding business development strategies and transactions.
Prior to joining Kite, Dr Bourk was a founding member of the cell therapy commercial team at Celgene Corporation and was the commercial lead for the development of next generation CAR T platforms.
Eliot has worked on the development and commercialization of the majority of the leading CAR T therapies including Abecma™, Breyzani™, Yescarta™ and Tecartus™.
Kelly Thornburg is the Vice President, Head of Quality at Chimeric Therapeutics. Kelly is a quality expert with over 20 years of experience and expertise managing highly complex quality operations.
Kelly brings extensive cell therapy experience to Chimeric, most recently from Kite, a Gilead company, where he was the site head for Kite’s US commercial manufacturing facility. Within this role, Kelly was responsible for the quality release of Kite’s US manufactured commercial and clinical products.
Prior to joining Kite, Kelly was the Senior Vice President, Operations at XBiotech USA and spent over 15 years as a quality leader at Amgen.
Kelly has worked on multiple clinical stage cell therapy assets as well as on leading CAR T therapies YescartaTM and TecartusTM.
Dr Li Ren is Vice President Technical Operations at Chimeric Therapeutics. Li has nearly 20 years of experience developing and advancing cell therapy drug candidates from the pre-clinical stage through to commercial licensure.
Dr Ren has led the process and analytical development of multiple allogeneic & autologous cell therapy products over her career, including CAR T cells, TCR cells, NK cells and mesenchymal-like stem cells.
Dr Ren joined Chimeric from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) where she most recently oversaw the technology transfers of Juno cell therapy pipeline products to BMS manufacturing facilities.
Over the course of her career Dr Ren has supported multiple IND submissions for pipeline products to enable clinical trials and designed and led process & analytical validation programs in support of commercial registration filing.
Paul Hopper is the Executive Chairman and Founder of Chimeric Therapeutics. Paul is an inspired bioentrepreneur that has been instrumental in founding several successful biotechnology companies including Imugene, Viralytics, Prescient and now Chimeric Therapeutics.
Paul has over 25 years of experience in the biotech, healthcare and life sciences sectors serving as the Chairman, non-executive director or CEO of more than fourteen companies in the United States, Australia and Asia.
Paul has extensive experience fund raising in Australia, Asia, the US and Europe along with proven expertise in corporate governance, risk and strategy.
Paul was the former Chairman of Viralytics when it was acquired by Merck in 2018 and is currently on the board of 3 ASX listed companies.
Dr George Matcham is cell therapy expert with over 30 years experience at Celgene Corporation where he championed the introduction of cellular immunotherapy and led the establishment of cell therapy and biologics technical development.
George joined Celgene in 1988 when the company was a 30-person startup and after 3 decades of successful leadership retired in 2018 with the company shortly thereafter being acquired for $74B by Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS).
Dr Matcham was vital to the growth of cell therapy at Celgene holding several leadership positions, including Chief Operations Officer of Celgene Cellular Therapeutics and Senior Vice President of CAR T CMC Development, where he oversaw clinical supply.
Dr Matcham holds a Ph.D in Biochemistry from Cardiff University and currently serves on the board and as an advisor at Instil Bio.
Dr Lesley Russell has over 25 years of international operational and leadership experience with established and emerging biotechnology companies including Amgen, Eli Lilly, Teva, and Cephalon.
Dr Russell previously served as the Chief Medical Officer at Cephalon Inc. prior to its acquisition and as the Global Head of R&D at Teva Pharmaceuticals.
Dr Russell medical training and extensive experience in the area of hematology/oncology and has submitted more than a dozen NDAs or sNDAs to the US Food and Drug Administration over the course of her career.
Dr Russell currently serves as a Non-Executive Director of Enanta Pharmaceuticals and Imugene Ltd in addition to Chimeric Therapeutics.
Leslie has over 20 years of experience in clinical development in oncology.
Leslie began her career in oncology clinical development at GSK and Exelixis before taking a role at Genentech as a Senior Clinical Program Leader where she focused on therapies for brain cancer.
Leslie has deep development experience with small molecules, immunotherapies, cancer vaccines, oncolytic viral therapies, epigenetics and monoclonal antibodies.
Ms Chong is currently the Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Imugene (ASX:IMU) and a Non-Executive Director of Cure Brain Cancer Foundation (CBCF)
Cindy Elkins was Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Juno Therapeutics, one of the pioneers in CAR T technology focused on blood cancers.
After the acquisition of Juno, Cindy served as the Global Head CAR T Patient Experience at Celgene Corporation and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) where she was responsible for connecting patients with their personalized therapy through world leading service and technology.
Prior to Juno, Ms. Elkins was Vice-President of Pharma Informatics at Genentech/Roche, where she was instrumental in ensuring all technology systems/processes were ready as soon as the FDA approved new medicines such as Zelboraf®, Gazyva®, Cotellic® and Tecentriq®.
Cindy currently serves as the Board Chair at the Foundation for Art and Healing in addition to as a non-executive director for Chimeric.
Dr Lin is currently the Chair of the Cellular Therapeutics Cross Disciplinary group at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, an Associate Professor of Medicine, and a consultant in the
Division of Hematology and the Division of Experimental Pathology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN.
Dr Lin is a pioneer in cellular immunotherapy having participated in many of the fi rst in human CAR T cell therapy trials and multiple phase 2 cellular immunotherapy
clinical trials. Dr Lin is also the author of over a hundred publications, including many pivotal cell therapy consensus statements and practice guidelines.
Dr Lin is a key committee member of SITC (Society for Immunotherapy for Cancer), the IMWG (International Working Group on Myeloma), CIBMTR (Centre for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research) and iwCART, the International Workshop on CAR T.
Dr Lin completed her medical training at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, IL.
She completed a residency at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Rochester, MN, followed by a hematology and medical oncology fellowship.
Michael R. Bishop is currently Professor of Medicine and Director, the David and Etta Jones Center for Cellular Therapy at the University of Chicago, a leading cellular therapy program in the United States.
Dr Bishop is a widely recognized as an expert in hematopoietic stem cell transplant and cellular therapy research and patient care, with a focus on leukemias and lymphomas. Dr Bishop has a specific interest in managing patients that have not responded to first-line treatments and is working with his team to address the unique social, economic, physiological and biological issues that these patients face while undergoing treatment.
Dr Bishop has served as an investigator for multiple clinical trials investigating novel cellular immunotherapies. Dr Bishop is also an active contributor to medical literature, authoring more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, in addition to more than 35 book chapters and two books on cancer treatment and research. He also serves on the editorial board of numerous scientific journals, including Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.
Dr Bishop previously served as the Director of the Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation Program at the University of Chicago and as a senior investigator and the clinical head of stem cell transplantation for the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health.
Eric Smith is the Director of Translational Research, Immune Effector Cell Therapies, head of the Eric Smith Lab for Synthetic Biology and Cellular Engineering at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and a member of the Faculty of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
Dr Smith specializes in cellular immunotherapy and hematological malignancies with a focus in multiple myeloma. Dr Smith utilizes the latest advances in gene engineering and cellular manipulation to design and screen novel cellular therapy strategies which, working in close partnership with the Dana Farber technical operations team, he then translates to the clinic.
Dr Smith spent the early part of his career in New York where he earned his MD and PhD (Genetics and Genomic Sciences) from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he also trained as a research track resident in internal medicine. Dr Smith then moved to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for his medical oncology fellowship and further research training. Dr Smith went on to serve as faculty and Director of Translational Development at the MSKCC Cellular Therapeutics Center before joining the Harvard Medical community at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in mid-2020.
Dr Smith’s pre-clinical work has resulted in nine awarded or pending patents, multiple products stemming from his lab work have been translated to the clinic and he is an author of many seminal publications in the field.
David G. Maloney is a Full Member of the Clinical Research Division, the Medical Director, Cellular Immunotherapy and the Bezos Family Immunotherapy Clinic and he holds the Leonard and Norma Klorfine Endowed Chair for Clinical Research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington.
Dr Maloney is a renowned clinician-scientist who has been at the forefront of cellular therapy research and development with a primary focus in the development of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy for a wide variety of cancers. Dr Maloney has been a clinical investigator in over 15 cellular therapy clinical trials ranging from phase 1, first in human trials to commercially approved CAR T cell therapies.
Dr Maloney’s long-standing research interest is in the development of immunotherapies for lymphoma, myeloma, CLL, and ALL. Dr Maloney was instrumental in the development and testing of rituximab, the first antibody-based cancer drug on the market that transformed the treatment of certain leukemias and lymphomas.
Dr Maloney has amassed greater than 265 publications in peer-reviewed journals and has received the Presidential Award from the Society for Biological Therapy (now the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer).
David G. Maloney received his MD and PhD in cancer biology from Stanford University, completed internship and residency in internal medicine at Brigham and Woman’s Hospital and a fellowship in oncology at Stanford. In 1994 he joined the faculties of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the University of Washington where he is currently a Professor of Medicine.
