Kiadis Pharma
VP of Discovery and Pre-clinical Development
Dr. Igarashi is VP of Discovery and Pre-clinical development at Kiadis Pharma where he contributes to lead science and research for NK cell therapeutics. He has diverse background in life sciences and has played an instrumental role in the development of the natural killer (NK) cell stimulating particle technology. He received a B.S. in Biochemistry and M.S. in Chemistry from California State University Fullerton, followed by a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Utah State University. He was a Post-doctoral Scholar at University California, Berkeley. He joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry and joint appointment in the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences at University of Central Florida. He has been part of the team to develop innovative methods for NK cell stimulation to be applied toward NK cell therapy for cancer treatment.
Talk:
Off the Lab Bench and into the Marketplace: Technology Commercialization at UCF (co-presenter)
Abstract:
UCF has provided an opportunity for technology development for natural killer (NK) cell therapeutics and have fostered commercial development of the UCF technology. The technology for NK cell production was developed by Dr. Alicja Copik at the Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences and then academic collaborators formed CytoSen Therapeutics to take this technology forward for commercial development. CytoSen enjoyed the collaborative entrepreneurial development environment around UCF that facilitated business development. CytoSen out-licensed the technology from the UCF-TTO, garnered investment to advance the therapeutic for commercial development. CytoSen was acquired by Kiadis Pharma in May of 2019, and then Sanofi Pastuer has made an offer to acquire Kiadis in the coming months for its NK cell technology platform. Kiadis continues to advance the UCF born technology in clinical trials for oncology and infectious disease for the benefit of patients in need.