Artiva Biotherapeutics, Inc., an oncology company focused on developing and commercializing primary allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell therapies to treat cancer, today announced the appointment of Christopher Horan as Chief Technical Operations Officer. As a leader in therapeutic technical operations, Mr. Horan brings more than 30 years of experience managing complex systems and teams in support of biologics campaign manufacturing, supply chain management, and product distribution.

“I am very pleased to welcome Chris to our team,” said Fred Aslan, M.D., CEO of Artiva. “His experience and leadership will be invaluable to us as we further establish our Manufacturing-First approach to off-the-shelf, NK cell therapeutics.”

“We believe Chris’s deep experience in managing the manufacture and supply of campaign manufactured biologic therapeutics and cell therapies will further advance Artiva’s goal of delivering highly-scaled NK and CAR-NK therapies to cancer patients with the logistical simplicity of traditional biologic products,” said Peter Flynn, Ph.D., Cofounder and Chief Operating Officer of Artiva.

“I’m excited to join Artiva, a leading company in the rapidly growing NK cell therapy field, and I look forward to working with the team as we work to further establish clinical and commercial supply from both Korean- and US-based manufacturing facilities,” said Mr. Horan.

Mr. Horan spent nearly 14 years at Genentech, a member of the Roche Group, where he held several leadership positions across technical operations, including as Senior Vice President, Global Product and Supply Chain Management for Roche in Basel, Switzerland. In that role, he led a 480-person team supplying all of Roche biopharma products worldwide. He joins Artiva from SanBio, where, as Chief Technical Officer (CTO), he led the process development, manufacturing, supply, and quality systems for their mesenchymal stem cell regenerative medicine approach to brain injury in support of a near-term registration in Japan. Previous to SanBio, he was Chief Technical Operations Officer at Dermira, where he led all aspects of pharmaceutical sciences, manufacturing, quality, supply chain, and procurement to launch the company’s first commercial product. He led the effort to prepare Dermira’s IL-13 monoclonal antibody program for Phase 3 trials and commercial filing and had a key role in supporting the company’s successful acquisition by Eli Lilly and Company. Mr. Horan started his career with over a decade of increasing responsibility in technical operations at Merck & Co.

About Artiva Biotherapeutics

Artiva’s mission is to deliver highly effective, off-the-shelf, allogeneic natural killer (NK) cell-based therapies, utilizing our Manufacturing-First approach, that are safe and accessible to cancer patients. Artiva’s pipeline includes AB-101, an ADCC enhancer NK-cell therapy candidate for use in combination with monoclonal antibodies or innate-cell engagers. Artiva is currently advancing a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of AB-101 in combination with rituximab for the treatment of relapsed or refractory B-cell lymphomas. Artiva’s pipeline also includes AB-201, an anti-HER2 CAR-NK cell therapy candidate for the treatment of HER2-overexpressing tumors, such as breast, gastric, and bladder cancers, and AB-202, a CD19-specific CAR-NK cell therapy candidate for the treatment of B-cell malignancies. The company has entered into therapeutic NK cell collaborations with Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. and with Affimed GmbH. Artiva’s AlloNK™ platform incorporates cell expansion, activation, and engineering technology developed by Artiva’s strategic partner, GC Cell Corporation, a member of the GC family of companies, a leading healthcare company in Korea. Artiva is headquartered in San Diego. For more info, visit www.artivabio.com.

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