Fate Therapeutics (FATE) Appoints Neely Mozaffarian to its Board

Fate Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: FATE), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to bringing a first-in-class pipeline of induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)-derived cellular immunotherapies to patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases, today announced the appointment of Neely Mozaffarian, MD, PhD, FACR, to its Board of Directors effective immediately. Dr. Mozaffarian brings to the Company medical and scientific leadership in the field of immunology and autoimmunity, with over 20 years of research and industry experience in the discovery, development, and commercialization of novel small and large molecule therapeutics.

“Dr. Mozaffarian is a strategic physician-scientist and rheumatologist with a long-standing and deep interest in systemic lupus erythematosus, and we are delighted to welcome her to our Board of Directors,” said Scott Wolchko, President and Chief Executive Officer of Fate Therapeutics. “Neely’s extensive industry experience and R&D leadership, which spans across multiple autoimmune disease areas and all phases of drug development, will be of great benefit as we continue to expand clinical investigation of our off-the-shelf, iPSC-derived cell product pipeline in autoimmunity.”

In May, the Company announced that the first patient with systemic lupus erythematosus had been treated in its Phase 1 autoimmunity study of FT819 (NCT06308978), the Company’s off-the-shelf, iPSC-derived CD8αβ+ T-cell product candidate that incorporates a novel CD19-targeted 1XX chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) construct into the T-cell receptor alpha constant locus. The first patient, a 27 year-old woman with refractory disease despite having been treated with multiple standard-of-care therapies, received conditioning chemotherapy followed by a single dose of FT819 at 360 million cells and was discharged after a three-day hospital stay without any notable adverse events.

“Initial clinical proof-of-concept with CAR T-cell therapies for autoimmunity is exceptionally promising, and I am excited to work with the team at Fate Therapeutics to drive innovation and maximize the potential of investigational disease-transforming cell products for patients,” said Dr. Mozaffarian. “The Company’s iPSC product platform and off-the-shelf cell product pipeline are positioned to be highly-differentiated, with therapeutic application across a broad spectrum of autoimmune indications, and I look forward to collaborating with the executive leadership team and the other Board members to chart novel clinical development strategies and maximize patient reach.”

Dr. Mozaffarian currently serves as Chief Medical Officer of Atomwise Inc., where she leads the company’s clinical development, operations, regulatory, and quality teams to progress AI-driven pipeline assets to first-in-human studies. Prior to Atomwise, Dr. Mozaffarian served as Chief Medical Officer of GentiBio, Inc., where she advanced novel autologous and allogenic T-regulatory cell programs aiming to restore immune homeostasis in patients with inflammatory diseases; as Vice President, Autoantibody Pathway Area Leader at Janssen Pharmaceuticals / Johnson & Johnson; as Senior Vice President at Ichnos Sciences Inc.; and held R&D leadership positions in clinical development at Gilead, Eli Lilly, and AbbVie.

Dr. Mozaffarian graduated with honors from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, and completed Internal Medicine residency and Rheumatology research fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle.

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