Orchard Therapeutics has appointed two gene therapy and industry experts, Fulvio Mavilio, Ph.D., and Nicoletta Loggia, Ph.D., to serve as chief scientific officer and chief technical officer, respectively.
 
The company also announced the promotion of Leslie Meltzer, Ph.D., who has been serving as senior vice president of medical affairs, clinical operations and diagnostics, to chief medical officer. Together, Mavilio, Loggia and Meltzer will oversee strategically important functions as Orchard continues to advance its later-stage portfolio and expand its hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy pipeline into larger indications.
 
“We have seen the potentially transformative impact of our HSC gene therapy approach in devastating rare diseases and are now extending our focus on more prevalent conditions where there is a compelling rationale,” said Bobby Gaspar, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer of Orchard Therapeutics. “Fulvio, Nicoletta and Leslie all have proven track records in their respective areas of expertise, and their leadership in building our next-generation R&D and technical operations capabilities will be instrumental in accelerating our progress, advancing our pipeline and scaling our commercial infrastructure.”
 
Loggia’s and Meltzer’s appointments are effective immediately. Mavilio has initially joined the company in a consulting capacity and will start full-time in January 2022.
 
About Fulvio Mavilio, Ph.D., chief scientific officer
 
Dr. Mavilio will lead the company’s discovery and translational research activities. In this capacity he will be responsible for expanding the company’s pipeline into larger indications.
 
He joins Orchard Therapeutics from Smart Immune where he serves as chief scientific officer. Previously, Mavilio was senior vice president of translational science at Audentes Therapeutics in San Francisco, where he was responsible for advancing the company’s pipeline from discovery to clinical development overseeing molecular biology, in vivo pharmacology, bioinformatics, and bioanalytics. Prior to joining Audentes, Mavilio was chief scientific officer of Genethon in Évry, France from 2012 to 2017 where he led the development of a robust pipeline of gene therapy programs for blood, liver, and neuromuscular diseases. Earlier in his career, he held various positions at the Center for Regenerative Medicine of the University of Modena, Molmed SpA, Genera SpA, and the San Raffaele-Telethon Institute of Gene Therapy in Milan, Italy.
 
Mavilio is a member of the European Molecular Biology Association, past member of the Board of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy and a member of the editorial board of many international journals in the fields of genetics, molecular biology and gene therapy. He earned a Ph.D. in medical genetics at the University of Rome School of Medicine and has published more than 200 articles in major international journals. He also serves as Professor of Molecular Biology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia in Modena, Italy.
 
About Nicoletta Loggia, Ph.D., chief technical officer

In her role, Dr. Loggia will be responsible for leading all aspects of technical operations, including process and analytical development, manufacturing, supply chain, engineering and CMC lifecycle management.
 
She joins Orchard Therapeutics from Novartis, where she held positions of increasing responsibility since 2004, most recently serving as global head of cell and gene therapies. In this role, Loggia led multidisciplinary international teams responsible for the end-to-end technical development, manufacturing and project management of several gene and cell therapies modalities, including lentiviral, adeno-associated virus (AAV), stem and CAR-T cell processes, from concept to commercialization. She also oversaw the integration of the CAR-T teams and AveXis’ AAV technical capabilities into Novartis’ technical R&D. Previously, Loggia was global head of technical development novel biologic entities and cell and gene therapies where she was responsible for the early phase development of biologics and gene therapies. Her broad industry experience encompasses global leadership in the development and manufacturing of sterile drug products and devices and approvals of several commercial assets.
 
A medicinal chemist by training, Loggia began her career in the biopharmaceutical industry as a formulation scientist at Pfizer. She earned her Ph.D. in pharmaceutical technologies from the University of Pavia in Italy. She is a registered pharmacist and member of the UK Royal and Italian Pharmaceutical societies.
 
About Leslie Meltzer, Ph.D., chief medical officer

Dr. Meltzer joined Orchard Therapeutics in June 2018 bringing extensive experience leading medical affairs for several premier biopharmaceutical companies. Throughout her career, Meltzer led integration of medical functions across brands including publication planning, field team training, advisory boards, patient registry and identification efforts, investigator-initiated trial prioritization and post-marketing planning. A neuroscientist by training, Meltzer has dedicated much of her career to advancing new therapies for difficult-to-treat brain diseases. During her tenure at the company, Meltzer has held positions of increasing responsibility, most recently serving as senior vice president of global medical affairs, diagnostics, clinical operations and data management.
 
She joined Orchard Therapeutics from Keryx Biopharmaceuticals (prior to its merger with Akebia Therapeutics) where she was the vice president of medical affairs supporting Auryxia (ferric citrate) for the treatment of chronic kidney disease. She previously served in various positions of increasing seniority in medical affairs at Biogen, where she led key elements of the U.S. launch and post-launch plan for Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate) for the treatment of relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis. In recognition of her success and contributions, Meltzer was promoted to leadership roles in Biogen’s multiple sclerosis and then its hemophilia franchises, comprising the company’s approved and investigational therapies. Meltzer began her career at Actelion (now part of Janssen) where she supported four approved and eight investigational therapies in a variety of therapeutic areas, including respiratory, cardiovascular, rheumatology, neurology and rare disease.
 
Meltzer earned her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford University School of Medicine.