Addressing the Realities of Scaling T-Cell Therapies for Patient Access and Affordability

Serena De Vita is a physician scientist with 20 years of experience in Hematology-Oncology in both the academic and industry settings. She has deep expertise in clinical trials, having designed and executed the clinical and translational development of first-in-human clinical programs across multiple modalities and indications and having directly contributed to the success of late-stage programs in hematology and oncology. Dr De Vita has a long-standing interest in developing cell and gene therapies. She started her industry career in early development at AstraZeneca, before moving to Novartis to drive the clinical development of multiple cell therapy assets manufactured under their next generation manufacturing platform. At Novartis, Dr De Vita served in roles of increased responsibility, including Global Head of Hematology, and most recently she was the interim Global Head of Translational Clinical Oncology. In January 2025, she re-joined AZ as the Global Franchise Head and the Clinical Strategy Head for Cell therapies in Late Development Oncology. Prior to embarking on a career in industry, she trained in malignant hematology in Italy (Policlinico Gemelli) and the UK (Queen Mary’s, Barts and the London), and then moved to the US to conduct translational research on basic mechanisms of leukemogenesis, hematopoietic stem cell biology and gene therapies at Dana Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center.

Arvind Natarajan, PhD, MBA, is Senior Vice President of Process and Analytical Development at Iovance, where he has worked on development and commercialization of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) therapy, lifileucel, for melanoma and other solid tumor indications. He has 25 years of CMC experience in cell and gene therapies, biologics, and vaccines. Prior to joining Iovance, Dr Natarajan was Global Head of Program Management and Strategy, Cell & Gene Technical Development and Manufacturing at Novartis. Prior to that, he was the Global CMC Lead for Kymriah, the first FDA-approved CAR-T therapy. Prior to Novartis, Dr Natarajan worked at Merck and Co for 15 years. While at Merck, he worked in biologics on tech transfer and approval of Keytruda, and in vaccines, supporting development, approval, and commercial manufacturing of Zostavax, ProQuad, and Varivax. Dr Natarajan earned an MBA from Wharton, a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Minnesota, a Masters in Microbial Engineering from University of Minnesota, and a Masters in Biology and BE in Electronics and Electrical Engineering from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani in India.

W. Gregory Sawyer is Chief BioEngineering Officer and Chair of the Department of BioEngineering at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa Florida. Prof. Sawyer has published over 200 journal papers, has over 16,000 citations, holds over 20 patents, and is most proud of his numerous PhD students that are now faculty members and scientists across the globe. He was a member of the original Mars Rover Program (NASA-JPL), a speaker at TED 8, lead the first space-tribology experiments on the International Space Station (ISS), developed novel biomaterials for the ocular surface, and is currently leading efforts in Cancer Engineering.

Sarah Warren, PhD is a Senior Director in Corporate Development at Gilead Science where she leads Search & Evaluation for the Kite cell therapy pipeline. Prior to joining Kite in 2022, she built and led the Translational Sciences team at NanoString technologies working on multiplexed RNA and spatial biology platforms for diagnostic and research applications, and she collaborated with investigators across academia, biopharma, nonprofit, and government. She got her start in industry and a founder and Director of Research at Oncofactor Corp, developing therapeutics targeting novel immune checkpoints. Dr. Warren received her PhD in immunology from the University of Washington. She serves as a director-at-large for the Society of Immunotherapy of Cancer, is a mentor for the Creative Destruction Labs computational health stream, and is a section editor for Molecular Pathology at the Journal of Translational Science.