Margo Roberts

Cell Genesys is a development-stage biotechnology firm focuses on gene-modification technologies to treat cancer. The company's lead product technology is its GVAX vaccine platform. Cell Genesys is working on GVAX vaccines for lung, prostate, and pancreatic cancer, as well as for leukemia and multiple myeloma, another blood cancer. Its oncolytic viral therapy platform uses specially engineered adenoviruses (such as the common cold) to kill cancer cells; the firm's lead candidate from this platform targets prostate cancer.

Kite Pharma, Inc. engages in the the development and commercialization of cancer immunotherapy products. Its products include chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and T cell receptor (TCR), which address both hematological and solid cancers. The company was founded by Arie S. Belldegrun, James S. Economou, and Joshua A. Kazam on 2009 and is headquartered in Santa Monica, CA.

Appia Bio, Inc. is an early stage biotechnology company based in an undisclosed location. Appia Bio is focused on discovering and developing engineered allogeneic cell therapies across a broad array of indications with a scalable technology platform that increases access for patients. The American company utilizes the biology of lymphocyte development with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) and T cell receptor (TCR) gene engineering to generate CAR-engineered invariant natural killer T (CAR-NKT) or gamma delta T cells from hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) with its ACUA (Appia Cells Utilized for Allogeneic) technology platform. The ACUA platform was developed from groundbreaking research in the laboratory of Lili Yang, Ph.D., at the University of California, and collaboration with Appia Bio's other scientific founders, David Baltimore, Ph.D. at Caltech and Pin Wang, Ph.D. at the University of Southern California. The company was founded in 2020 by Jeffrey S. Wiezorek, David Baltimore, Jeenjoo Kang, Lili Yang, Edmund Kim, and Pin Wang. Jeenjoo Kang has been the CEO since 2020.