Kumar Srinivasan is the President and CEO of Wugen, a St. Louis clinical-stage biotech building off-the-shelf memory NK and CAR-T cell therapies for cancer. A chemist turned dealmaker, he spent 25+ years in pharma and biotech business development, most notably engineering the partnering strategy at Turning Point Therapeutics that culminated in its $4.1 billion acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb. Since taking Wugen's helm in March 2023, he has steered its lead programs WU-CART-007 and WU-NK-101 into pivotal and early clinical trials.
Wugen is a clinical-stage biotechnology company in St. Louis engineering off-the-shelf, allogeneic cell therapies for cancer. Spun out of Washington University in St. Louis in 2018, it builds CRISPR-edited CAR-T cells and cytokine-induced memory NK cells designed to be manufactured once from healthy donors and delivered to many patients. Its lead program, WU-CART-007 (soficabtagene geleucel), is a CD7-targeted allogeneic CAR-T in a pivotal trial for relapsed/refractory T-cell leukemia and lymphoma, carrying FDA Breakthrough Therapy, RMAT, Fast Track, Orphan Drug and Rare Pediatric Disease designations.