3T Biosciences appoints industry veteran as interim CEO

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3T Biosciences appoints industry veteran as interim CEO

Immunotherapy company 3T Biosciences has picked John Connolly, Ph.D., as interim CEO. Together with the current leadership team, Dr. Connolly will lead the next round of financing with an emphasis on leveraging the company’s 3T-TRACE technology for novel target discovery and therapeutic development.

“John has vast experience building and leading research and clinical programs in cell and gene therapy,” says Hanspeter Gerber, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at 3T Biosciences. “It’s an honor to have him guiding our program as we advance this business to the next phase of its evolution. Given his past and current experience, John has a successful track record of helping to raise capital and collaborating with innovative biopharmaceutical companies across the globe.”

Dr. Connolly serves as a member of the board of directors at 3T and works as chief scientific officer at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), an investor in 3T and one of the company’s most prominent research partners. He most recently served as chief scientific officer at Tessa Therapeutics, a clinical stage cell therapy company conducting one of the world’s largest T cell studies.

“With several research collaborations in place, I’ve been impressed with the team’s efforts and the promising application of our technology up to this point,” Dr. Connolly says. “It’s an honor to have the support of our board of directors and our internal team as we shift our near-term efforts to an emphasis on novel target discovery. I have every confidence in our platform and believe this direction is an ideal next step in our evolution as we look to maximize the value of our assets and raise capital on the path toward an initial IND filing,”

John Connolly, Interim CEO, 3T Biosciences

Dr. Connolly more than 20 years of research experience in immunotherapy and has published more than 100 papers and chapters in peer-reviewed journals. As a human immunologist, his research interests focus on immune monitoring and immunometabolism. He also served as an associate professor at National University of Singapore and an adjunct associate professor of Immunology at Baylor University, where he served on the board of governors for the Institute of Biomedical Sciences. In this role he helped lead 13 different research institutes across the state. 

Dr. Connolly invests time as director for the IMPACT Program, a multi-disciplinary national initiative focused building cell therapy manufacturing, clinical and regulatory capability for Singapore; and is founding director of the Singapore Immunology Network’s Immunomonitoring Platform. In these roles he is building a national cell therapy program to guide investment of the sovereign fund throughout the country and drive industry collaborations.

He has a Ph.D. in immunology from Dartmouth Medical School and studied human dendritic cell biology under Dr. Michael Fanger, a renowned scientist and entrepreneur behind luminary industry companies such as Medarex, Celldex, and Genmab.