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PCI Participates in Cellicon Valley ’23: The Future of Cell and Gene Therapies

On June 22, PCI staff members participated in Cellicon Valley ’23: The Future of Cell and Gene Therapies, a symposium hosted by Penn Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia with the goal of implementing new standards of patient care and understanding new strategies to optimize and improve CAR T cell therapies.

Three staff members spoke at Track 5: “$tuff You Should Know about Starting Up and Spinning Out a Cell and Gene Biotech.” 

John Swartley, MBA, PhD, Associate Vice Provost for Research and Managing Director of PCI, moderated a panel about founding and financing cell and gene therapy companies, with Benjamin Dibling, PhD, Deputy Managing Director of PCI, Haig Aghajanian, PhD, co-founder of Capstan Therapeutics, and Lauren Murdza, Esq. of DLA Piper, as panelists. 

Carter Caldwell, MBA, Director of the Penn Medicine Co-investment Program, also spoke as a panelist along with Michael Allwin, Managing Director, Healthcare Investment Banking at Truist Securities, Christiana Bardon, MD, MBA, Co-managing Partner at BioImpact Capital. With Asthika Goonewardene, MBA, Managing Director at Truist Securities, as their moderator, their group discussed investor insights for emerging cell and gene therapy companies raising money. 

Left to right: Lauren Murdza, Esq.,  Haig Aghajanian, PhD, Ben Dibling, PhD, and John Swartley, MBA, PhD.

Left to right: Michael Allwin, Carter Caldwell, MBA, Bruce Levine, PhD, Christiana Bardon, MD, MBA, and Asthika Goonewardene, MBA.