Michael Kalos, PhD
Managing Director
Next Pillar Consulting
Michael Kalos, PhD, is an internationally recognized expert in T cell therapy and immunotherapy, and brings over 25 years of experience and expertise in cell therapy, oncology vaccines, and immuno-oncology.Most recently Dr Kalos served as Executive Vice President and Head of R&D at ArsenalBio, a synthetic biology-based cell therapy start-up. At ArsenalBio Michael played a key role to develop the corporate R&D strategy, and had direct remit to establish the product development organization and the strategy for the company’s first product. Prior to ArsenalBio Dr Kalos served as Vice President of Immuno-oncology and Oncology Cell Therapies at Janssen, the pharmaceutical companies of Johnson and Johnson, where he led corporate internal and external strategy and efforts in cell therapy, neoantigen vaccines, and immuno-oncology. Prior to Janssen, Dr Kalos served as Chief Scientific Officer of immuno-oncology at Eli Lilly and Company, where he established and led internal and external corporate strategy in immuno-oncology, including biologics, bi-specifics, vaccines, and cell therapy. Prior to joining the biopharmaceutical sector, Dr Kalos spent 10 years in academia, where he focused on the development of integrated translational biomarker programs to support the development of cell therapy and immunotherapy programs. The laboratory he founded and directed at the University of Pennsylvania played a key role in the success of the cell therapy program at Penn, including clinical development of the CTL019 program that was licensed to Novartis and led to the approval of Kymriah.Dr Kalos obtained his PhD from the University of Minnesota, and completed post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Phil Greenberg at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.Dr Kalos has co-authored over 85 peer-reviewed manuscripts, including multiple highly cited articles in high-impact journals that have helped define the space of CAR- and TCR- based T cell therapy, as well as book chapters in the field of cancer immunotherapy, and has 26 issued patents in the field of cell therapy, immunotherapy, and vaccines. He actively serves and has served as an advisory member for biopharmaceutical companies, as well as international immunotherapy consortia and societies.
