Nishat Shaikh is Vice President of Intellectual Property and Contracts at GentiBio. Nishat was previously at Novartis, where she led the global patent strategy for several of Novartis’s key CAR-T assets, including the first approved CAR-T product, and Novartis’s proprietary CAR-T cell and vector manufacturing platforms. Prior to Novartis, Nishat practiced in the law firm setting, where she counseled academic institutions, biotechs, and pharmaceutical companies regarding patent prosecution, freedom-to-operate analyses, litigation, and licensing. Nishat received her JD, cum laude, from Boston College Law School and her BS from Cornell University in Biological Sciences, concentration in Molecular and Cell Biology, cum laude with Distinction in Research. Prior to attending law school, Nishat was a bench scientist working in humanized antibody development at a San Diego biotech. Nishat lives in the Boston metro area and enjoys spending time with her family and friends, traveling, and reading. Her love of learning has turned her into a serial hobbyist. Her current interests include knitting, rock tumbling, and orchid collecting.
Team Category: Management
Brian Christin is Senior Director, CMC Strategy Lead at GentiBio. Brian has experience advancing multiple cell therapy programs through clinical and commercial development during his time at Dendreon, Juno Therapeutics, Celgene, and Bristol Myers Squibb. Most recently, Brian was the Senior Director of Cell Therapy Product Stewardship at Bristol Myers Squibb (previously Celgene, Juno Therapeutics) where he led a team that maintained technical accountability for approval, launch, and post-approval lifecycle management of the commercial Breyanzi and Abecma programs and supported advancement of multiple early phase cell therapy programs. Born and raised in the Seattle area, Brian stayed in the Pacific Northwest and obtained a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Washington (Go Dawgs!). Outside of work, Brian enjoys spending time with his family, catching a Sounders or Kraken game, and exploring Washington wine regions.
Adan is Senior Director of Quality at GentiBio. Adan has over 20 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry including the cell therapy companies Juno Therapeutics, Sonoma Biotherapeutics, and Dendreon. In his most recent roles, Adan has been responsible for building out the Quality infrastructure, systems, and business processes to enable product manufacturing in support of clinical trials and commercialization. Adan’s experience includes leading Quality groups accountable for vendor management, audit program, apheresis site on-boarding, Clinical QA, and production site QA operations. Adan’s work has supported the clinical development and commercialization of three cellular therapies (Breyanzi, Abecma, and Provenge). Adan received his B.A. from the University of Southern California (Fight On!) and lives in Seattle with his wife and two teenage children. In his spare time, Adan enjoys traveling, biking, and spending time with his family.
Tiffany is the Vice President of Discovery at GentiBio. Prior to joining GentiBio, Tiffany was Director of Scientific Evaluation and Strategy and previously Director of Discovery at Rubius Therapeutics. As a starting scientist at Rubius, Tiffany developed the foundation of the company’s engineered red cell platform. She built out prototyping efforts for therapeutic candidates and platform capabilities by establishing the culture science and protein science teams that enabled preclinical activities in Discovery. As head of the Immunology Team, she led initial work in utilizing the red cell platform to address autoimmune diseases. Subsequently, Tiffany led efforts in the antigen specific immuno-oncology space and served as a cross-functional leader driving a program from early discovery through IND approval. Most recently, she led evaluation of external technologies and drove communications with external parties to lay the groundwork for future collaborations and partnerships. Tiffany is originally from Texas and holds a B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and a Ph.D. in Biological Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on engineering therapeutic proteins for immune modulation. In her spare time, Tiffany enjoys traveling, exploring places to eat, and being a doting dog aunt by spoiling the house dog with treats and pets.
Chuck Silberstein is Chief Financial Officer at GentiBio. Prior to joining the company, Chuck was the Chief Financial Officer and Head of Business Development at Applied Therapeutics. Preceding Applied Therapeutics, Chuck was Senior Vice President of Corporate Business Development at Allergan, where he led the Ophthalmology Business Development team. Along with broad corporate strategy and business development experience, Chuck has over 17 years of investment and capital markets experience, as a portfolio manager and equity healthcare analyst at The Boston Company Asset Management, Goldman Sachs Asset Management and as a senior healthcare equity analyst at JP Morgan Asset Management. Chuck received his MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine with Distinction in research in developmental neurobiology and his MBA from Columbia Business School.
Heidi is the Senior Director of Program Management at GentiBio. She brings over 18 years of experience in the drug development space with extensive experience in program management for early and late-stage development platforms. Prior to joining GentiBio, Heidi was the Program Director at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals for Belcesiran, an alpha-1 antitrypsin liver disease program. Previously, Heidi was the Senior Director of Program Management for Eloxx Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on nonsense mutations in Cystic Fibrosis, Cystinosis and Inherited Retinal Disorders. During her career, she has been part of multiple global regulatory submissions, including the US approval of Tymlos at Radius Health. She has multiple publications in osteoporosis and fracture repair and holds several patents in bioanalytical method development. Heidi has a B.S. in Biology from Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.
In her spare time, Heidi enjoys skiing with her kids and coaching the Attitash Alpine Race Team in NH.
Emilie Coueignoux is Vice President of Business Development at GentiBio. Emilie was previously at Seagen, a global oncology company, where she started in Commercial organization with the Global Market Insights team before transitioning to Corporate Development. As Senior Director of Corporate Development, she played leading roles in the acquisition of Cascadian Therapeutics as well as collaboration agreements with BeiGene and Merck. Prior to Seagen, she was a consultant in L.E.K.’s life science practice, working in the Boston and Shanghai offices. Emilie has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In her free time, she likes to travel with her husband and daughter, and discover new local hikes in the Pacific Northwest.
Hatem Heikal is the Vice President of Finance at GentiBio. Before joining the company, Hatem led strategic finance at several high-growth technology companies, where he was responsible for raising over $700M in funding, led an IPO process, and executed multiple M&A opportunities. Hatem’s career began in venture capital and private equity investing, supporting over $3B in investments across Healthcare, Financial Services, and Education. Hatem has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. In his free time, he enjoys scuba-diving, squash, and cooking.
Tom Crevier is Senior Director of the Automation, Informatics and IT team at GentiBio. Prior to joining GentiBio, Tom was the Director of Automation and Data at Juno Therapeutics where he managed a team that supported both the commercialized Breyanzi and Abecma CAR-T cell therapy products. Before Juno Therapeutics, he was a Principal Lead Software Engineer at Microsoft where he helped ship HoloLens, Kinect for Xbox One and Amalga Life Sciences. Tom started his career at Symyx Technologies where he was the Director of Automation Software and developed hardware and software to enable high throughput experimentation in many industries. Tom obtained a BS in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College and a PhD in Organometallic Chemistry from the University of Washington. Outside of work, Tom likes to hike, hang out with his chickens and collect rare records.
Mirna Mujacic is Vice President of Process and Analytical Development. Mirna brings 15-years of drug development experience in process development and analytics. Prior to joining GentiBio, Mirna contributed to the development of CAR-T cell therapies targeting blood cancers at Juno Therapeutics/Bristol Myers Squibb in process development and CMC team leadership roles. Before transitioning to cell therapy development, Mirna was a process development and technology lead on therapeutic monoclonal antibody programs at Amgen. Mirna holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from University of Washington.