CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–Catamaran Bio, Inc., a biotechnology company developing allogeneic CAR-NK cell therapies to treat diseases with significant unmet medical need, announced the appointment of Alvin Shih, MD, MBA, as President and Chief Executive Officer.
He has concurrently been appointed to the Board of Directors for Catamaran. Dr. Shih is an experienced biopharma executive with a track record of success in building companies across a broad spectrum of disease areas and therapeutic modalities, including cell and tissue therapies.
“We are delighted to welcome Alvin to Catamaran, as his exceptional leadership skills for high-growth biotech companies are an ideal fit to lead the next phase of growth and CAR-NK cell therapy product development at Catamaran,” said Kevin Pojasek, PhD, founder, initial Executive Chairman and current Board member of Catamaran. “Alvin will join the outstanding team at Catamaran that is rapidly advancing programs based on a cutting-edge and differentiated platform for developing allogeneic CAR-NK cell therapies capable of reaching solid tumors.”
Dr. Shih was most recently CEO of Disarm Therapeutics, a private biotechnology company developing therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases, until its acquisition by Eli Lilly in October 2020. Prior to Disarm, he was CEO of Enzyvant Therapeutics, where he led the company’s development of a cell/tissue-based therapy for a rare immunologic disease. Previously, he was Executive Vice President and Head of R&D at Retrophin, Inc. (now Travere Therapeutics) where he led the development of a diverse pipeline encompassing multiple disease areas. Alvin was previously the Chief Operating Officer and a founding member of Pfizer’s rare disease research unit, and he began his career as a management consultant at L.E.K. Consulting and McKinsey & Company. Dr. Shih holds an MD from the University of Alabama and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He completed residency training in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
“Catamaran has a unique set of capabilities for developing highly-potent CAR-NK cell therapies with the potential to dramatically expand the reach of cell therapies to solid tumors and bring transformative benefit to patients in need,” said Dr. Shih. “I am thrilled to have the opportunity to lead the very talented team at Catamaran as we advance our leading-edge TAILWIND™ Platform for engineering and manufacturing off-the-shelf CAR-NK cell therapies.”
