ImmunoScape Appoints Peter Olagunju as Chief Executive Officer

Biotech industry veteran with two decades of clinical development, manufacturing, and technical operations leadership to guide ImmunoScape's "Seed and Boost" platform toward the clinic

SINGAPORE & BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ImmunoScape Pte. Ltd., an A*STAR spin-out backed by Amgen Ventures and EDBI that is developing next-generation TCR-based cancer immunotherapies, today announced the appointment of Peter Olagunju as Chief Executive Officer. Olagunju joins ImmunoScape as the company prepares to advance its Seed and Boost platform into the clinic. Co-founder Michael Fehlings, Ph.D., continues to lead the company's scientific and technical strategy as Chief Technology Officer.

“Peter is the rare executive who has done this at every stage: building manufacturing platforms from academic starting points, guiding products through regulatory approval, and running a company from formation through successful outcomes. He has helped bring seven therapies to commercialization and knows how to build lean, capital-efficient organizations,” said Adrian Bot, MD, Ph.D., ImmunoScape Board Member and former Chief Scientific Officer of both Kite Pharma and Capstan Therapeutics. “As ImmunoScape moves from platform to clinic, that combination of technical depth and operating judgment is precisely what the company needs.”

Olagunju brings more than 20 years of experience in clinical development, manufacturing, and technical operations, and has contributed to seven approved products, including PROVENGE^®, ZYNTEGLO^®, ABECMA^®, ADSTILADRIN^®, SKYSONA^®, and LYFGENIA^®. He most recently served as Chief Executive Officer of a Catalio Capital-backed oncology company, which he led from formation through a $14 million seed financing to a successful corporate transaction.

He previously held Chief Operating Officer and Chief Technology Officer roles at TCR² Therapeutics, where he served as the operations lead on the company's acquisition by Adaptimmune, and has held senior executive positions at FerGene and bluebird bio. Olagunju is Chairman of the Board of March Biosciences and holds an M.B.A. from the University of Washington's Foster School of Business and a B.S. in Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Solid tumors have been the hardest problem in cell therapy, and the limiting factor has consistently been persistence — getting engineered T cells to survive and keep working inside the tumor,” said Olagunju. “ImmunoScape’s Seed-and-Boost approach goes directly at that problem, and it does so with a platform that applies across autologous, allogeneic, and in vivo delivery. I’ve spent my career translating academic science into manufacturing and clinical execution at scale, and that is exactly what this moment calls for. My immediate priority is working with our partners to move our platform into the clinic.”

About ImmunoScape

ImmunoScape is a premier, clinical-stage Singapore-headquartered biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of next-generation cell immunotherapies in oncology. With operations in Singapore and Boston, ImmunoScape drives innovation to deliver transformative treatments for solid tumors using its proprietary deep immunomics and high-throughput TCR discovery platforms. For more information, please visit immunoscape.com.