Image | Courtesy of ORI Capital
Simone Song, founder and senior partner at ORI Capital and a board member of Affyimmune Therapeutics
March 19, 2024
Natick biopharma promotes chief operating officer to CEO, names new SVP
Image | Courtesy of AffyImmune Therapeutics
Former AffyImmune Therapeutics CEO Matt Britz
AffyImmune Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Natick, has promoted Chief Operating Officer Matt Britz to the role of CEO and named Pete Gelinas as its new senior vice president of chemistry, manufacturing, and controls.
Britz, who joined AffyImmune as its senior vice president, business development in June 2021, has 28 years of life science-related experience, according to a press release issued by the company on Tuesday. Britz is the first CEO in the company’s history.
AffyImmune is working to develop CAR T cell therapies, which utilizes patients’ own immune systems to target and destroy cancer cells. The company has 11 local employees and 24 employees company-wide, according to data submitted by the company to the WBJ Research Department.
“Matt has been an instrumental part of AffyImmune’s growth in the past two years,” said Simone Song, chairperson of the board of directors for AffyImmune, and founder and senior partner at ORI Capital, which has invested in AffyImmune and announced a $260-million raise in February. “Matt has executed a focused business strategy supported by insights generated from our big data platform ORIzon, which has led to promising early clinical results for AffyImmune’s lead program AIC100 in advanced thyroid cancer.”
Britz previously served as senior vice president and head of business development at Minerva Biotechnologies, a Waltham-based biotechnology company. He holds a MBA and a master’s degree in biology from Washington University in St. Louis and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Image | Courtesy of AffyImmune Therapeutics
Pete Gelinas, senior vice president of chemistry, manufacturing, and control at AffyImmune Therapeutics
“I’m honored to lead AffyImmune’s efforts in advancing affinity-tuned CAR T therapies, building upon the solid foundation we’ve established in the last few years,” Britz said in the press release. “Together, we're well-positioned to make significant advancements in addressing the challenges of solid cancers to improve patient outcomes."
Prior to being hired in the newly created role of AffyImmune’s senior vice president of chemistry, manufacturing, and controls, Gelnias served as head of manufacturing and technical operations at ElevateBio, a biotechnology research and development firm in Waltham. He graduated from Springfield College with a bachelor’s degree in sports biology, according to his LinkedIn profile.
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