June 12, 2024 (Hamilton, Ontario) – OmniaBio Inc. is pleased to announce the appointment of Kenneth (Ken) L. Harris as its Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Artificial Intelligence (AI), strengthening its mandate of bringing maturity to cell and gene therapy (CGT) through focused CGT expertise in contract development and manufacturing.
Harris, a seasoned executive with more than 30 years of experience in the health care and life sciences technology markets, will drive OmniaBio’s growth and scale in his role as Chief Strategy Officer. Harris will play a key role in shaping OmniaBio’s corporate strategy and service differentiation, as well as lead the formation of OmniaBio’s Advisory Board. As Head of AI, Harris’s expertise in this area will bolster OmniaBio’s strategic interest in advancing its manufacturing automation and data-based decision-making.
“Ken Harris brings an impressive track record of global executive leadership as well as a deep knowledge of, and passion for, the cell and gene therapy field,” says Mitchel Sivilotti, CEO, OmniaBio. “Ken’s strategic leadership will help OmniaBio drive advancements in the industry and provide exceptional value to our clients and partners. His expertise will be particularly invaluable as we prepare to open our strategically located, CGT-focused commercial-scale manufacturing facility this year, an exciting addition to our existing manufacturing capabilities.”
Harris joins OmniaBio from Amazon’s cloud and AI division, where he was the Vertical Head for Academic Medicine for Amazon Web Services (AWS) and a member of AWS’s health care leadership team. While at Amazon he led the strategy, business development and go-to-market organization for academic medicine and public health care delivery markets centred around artificial intelligence, big data analytics, and multi-modal computation for precision medicine.
Harris previously led two CGT start-ups, one which he co-founded and took public (TotipotentRX Corporation). The second was a Stanford University spin-out focused on in vivo whole cell tracking and detection, including symbiotic transfection capabilities to deliver large CRISPR-based gene editing payloads into eukaryotic cells. Earlier in his career, Harris led the transformation of Pall Life Sciences (now part of Danaher Corporation) into a leading cell biology and cell therapy organization.
Harris is a thought leader in AI for biopharma and medicine, and an in-demand public speaker on the use, validation and safety criteria for implementing large language models in regulated environments. He has served on the National Institutes of Health Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) working group for software and data interoperability, as well as on the public health working group for the Coalition for Health AI (CHAI).
“I’m delighted to join the OmniaBio team,” says Ken Harris, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of AI, OmniaBio Inc. “OmniaBio is well-positioned to drive the future of cell and gene therapy manufacturing and automation with a focus to improve both cost and quality – essential for these technologies to become first-line therapies for patients across the globe. I’m looking forward to collaborating with my new colleagues on OmniaBio’s lifesaving work.”
About OmniaBio Inc.
OmniaBio Inc., a subsidiary of CCRM, is a dedicated, global cell and gene therapy contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) with a vision to manufacture a disease-free world. As a subsidiary of CCRM, OmniaBio is harnessing over a decade of expertise in regenerative medicine and advanced therapies. Offering comprehensive and tailored CDMO services, cutting-edge development and reliable Good Manufacturing Practices capabilities, OmniaBio specializes in immune cell-based therapies, induced pluripotent stem cell therapies and lentiviral vectors, driving advancements in the field and bringing maturity to cell and gene therapy. With existing clinical manufacturing capabilities and a commercial facility opening this fall, OmniaBio is poised to meet the surging global manufacturing demand, enabling access to transformative treatments for patients around the world. Please visit us at www.omniabio.com to learn more.
For further information, please contact:
Stacey Johnson
Vice President, Communications and Marketing
CCRM and OmniaBio Inc.
stacey.johnson@omniabio.com