BERKELEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Caribou Biosciences, Inc., a leading clinical-stage CRISPR genome-editing biopharmaceutical company, today announced the appointment of Andrew Guggenhime to its board of directors. Mr. Guggenhime is an accomplished biopharmaceutical industry leader with more than 20 years of experience.
“Andrew brings a wealth of financial, strategic, and operational leadership experience in both private and public healthcare company settings,” said Rachel Haurwitz, Ph.D., Caribou’s president and chief executive officer. “We are delighted to welcome him to our board of directors and look forward to benefitting from his expertise as we continue to build the company and advance our pipeline of chRDNA-edited allogeneic cell therapies.”
“Caribou is an exciting company, using its technology to expand the promise of cell therapies for cancer treatment,” said Mr. Guggenhime. “I look forward to working closely with the Caribou leadership team and the other directors as the company begins its phase 1 study for the first of its differentiated allogeneic cell therapies and continues to develop its proprietary chRDNA platform.”
Mr. Guggenhime currently serves as president and chief financial officer of Vaxcyte, Inc., which he joined in 2020. He helped lead Vaxcyte’s initial public offering and established the infrastructure to enable public company compliance. Prior to joining Vaxcyte, Mr. Guggenhime served as chief financial officer for several biotech companies including Dermira, Inc. (acquired by Eli Lilly and Company), Calistoga Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (acquired by Gilead Sciences, Inc.), and Facet Biotech Corporation (acquired by Abbott Laboratories). Mr. Guggenhime has executed on a wide range of financial and strategic transactions, helped scale organizations from research to clinical to commercial stage, and built and led business planning and process initiatives for multiple corporate functions. He began his career in financial services at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Wells Fargo & Company. Mr. Guggenhime is also a member of the board of directors of Metacrine, Inc. He earned his B.A. in International Politics and Economics from Middlebury College and an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
About Caribou’s Novel Next-Generation CRISPR Platform
CRISPR genome editing uses easily designed, modular biological tools to make DNA changes in living cells. There are two basic components of Type II CRISPR systems: the nuclease protein that cuts DNA and the RNA molecule(s) that guide the nuclease to generate a site-specific, double-stranded break, leading to editing at the targeted genomic site. CRISPR systems occasionally edit unintended genomic sites, known as off-target editing, which may lead to harmful effects on cellular function. In response to this challenge, Caribou has developed chRDNAs (pronounced “chardonnays”), RNA-DNA hybrid guides that direct substantially more precise genome editing, including multiplex editing and gene insertion, than all-RNA guides. Caribou is deploying the power of chRDNAs to develop CRISPR-edited therapies by guiding cellular editing with the highest level of fidelity.
About Caribou Biosciences, Inc.
Caribou is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to transforming the lives of patients with devastating diseases by applying the company’s proprietary chRDNA technology toward the development of next-generation, genome-edited cell therapies with best-in-class potential. The company is developing a pipeline of genome-edited, off-the-shelf CAR-T and CAR-NK cell therapies for the treatment of both hematologic malignancies and solid tumors for clinically validated targets as well as new targets.
For more information about Caribou, visit www.cariboubio.com and follow the company @CaribouBio.
“Caribou Biosciences” and the Caribou logo are registered trademarks of Caribou Biosciences, Inc.
