BlueSphere Bio names Apelian CEO
UPMC has named a physician and life sciences industry veteran to lead a 2- year- old biotech startup that is testing faster, more effective ways of treating cancer using the body’s own defenses.
David Apelian has been named CEO of BlueSphere Bio, which is the first translational spinout from 4- year- old UPMC Enterprises, the commercialization arm of the Pittsburgh health system giant. Translational science aims to turn laboratory findings into bedside therapies.
The company employs about a dozen people and raised $ 10 million in Series A funding from UPMC in the fourth quarter of 2018.
BlueSphere Bio licensed its technology from the University of Pittsburgh, where company co- founders Mark Shlomchik and Warren Shlomchik — brothers, physicians and scientific collaborators — developed a fast way of identifying the patient’s naturally occurring T- cells.
T- cells are the workhorse of the human immune system, directing the body’s response to bacteria and diseases and killing infected cells.
T- cell therapies have taken the biotech industry by storm in recent years with the promise of a new weapon to fight cancer in addition to the standard regimen of chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. The market for these products was expected to reach $ 124.8 billion by the end of 2024, up from $ 37.5 billion in 2015, according to Albany, N. Y.based Transparency Market Research.
The company has no corporate office yet, but the Immune Transplant and Therapy Center, which is being developed on Baum Boulevard in Bloomfield, is among the sites being considered, Dr. Apelian said.
The center — a joint project of the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC — will be a 350,000square- foot immunotherapy center located near the UPMC Shadyside Hospital campus, where scientists will share space with entrepreneurs. The arrangement is designed to accelerate commercialization of scientific breakthroughs.
The new center is pegged to open in 2021.
BlueSphere Bio has developed a platform for identifying the most effective T- cells for attacking cancer. The technology is expected to be effective in treating solid tumors — the most difficult to treat — with fewer side effects than other therapies.
Dr. Apelian, who is board certified in pediatrics, joins BlueSphere Bio from Eiger Pharmaceuticals in Palo Alto, Calif., where he served as chief operations officer and executive medical officer. He received a doctorate degree in molecular biology at Rutgers University before attending medical school at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.