Gracell Biotechnologies Inc. (“Gracell” or the “Company”, NASDAQ: GRCL), a global clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing highly efficacious and affordable cell therapies for the treatment of cancer, today announced the appointment of Samuel Zhang, Ph.D., as its Chief Business Officer (CBO). In this role, Dr. Zhang will be responsible for strategic leadership of Gracell’s global business development and corporate strategy, including structuring, negotiating and executing of strategic alliances and collaborations.
“We are delighted to welcome Dr. Zhang to Gracell as CBO, as we continue strengthening our global leadership team,” said Dr. William (Wei) Cao, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Gracell. “Dr. Zhang is an accomplished biopharma leader with significant strategic and transactional expertise in business development, corporate strategy and commercialization. Dr. Zhang brings to Gracell over 20 years of industry experience across drug development stages, and has a long history of deal making at both large pharmaceutical and small biotech companies. Under this strengthened leadership team, we look forward to an exciting second half of 2022 as we continue advancing our rich pipeline and plan to file our first U.S. investigational new drug application.”
Dr. Zhang said, “I have long believed that immunotherapy is key in winning the war against cancer and became professionally dedicated to the field in 2009. I am very excited to join Gracell’s world-class team to accelerate the company’s global growth. With its proprietary platforms, global development capabilities and highly differentiated pipeline, Gracell is well positioned to pioneer the next generation of cell therapies and bring these breakthroughs to more patients in need.”
Prior to joining Gracell, Dr. Zhang served as CBO at NeoImmuneTech, where he defined the company’s overall business strategy with his cross-functional leadership and oversaw business development including deal execution. Dr. Zhang has also held positions of increasing responsibility at Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, and Merus. Dr. Zhang holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from Columbia University, an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Biology from Peking University.