OverT Bio – About Us

Meet our team

Christine Baker

Miao Chen

Sara Choi

Vicki Coutinho

Julie Déchanet-Merville

Joseph Fraietta

Francesco Galimi

Theodore Giavridis

Maria Guarino

Tim Hagerty

Caroline Hanlon

Eric Johnson

Michael Kalos

Omair Khan

Mat Legut

Niraj Mehta

Navamallika Reddy

Ivan Reyes Torres

Mark Roberto

Neville Sanjana

Andrea Schietinger

Ashley Thornal

Kristen Vogt

Mitchell Wang

Mat Legut

Co-Founder and CEO

Mat Legut

Co-Founder and CEO

Dr. Legut is the co-founder and CEO of OverT Bio. He is an immunologist with a deep belief in the transformative potential of programmable next-generation immunotherapies. With over a decade of experience in basic and translational oncology research, his career spans cell therapy, oncolytic viruses, antigen discovery and nanomedicine. Together with Dr. Sanjana, he developed the foundational cell programming and genome-scale overexpression platform in immune cells that powers OverT’s innovative immunotherapies. His work — published in leading scientific and medical journals — forms the foundation of OverT’s discovery platforms.

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Prior to OverT, he has helped develop and deliver clinical programs for gamma delta T cells, CAR-T cells and TILs. Previously, Dr. Legut served as a Hope Fellow at the New York Genome Center and NYU, where he led an immunogenomics team and pioneered pooled overexpression screening to accelerate the development of innovative cell therapies. Dr. Legut completed his PhD in Andrew Sewell’s lab at Cardiff University. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on five patent applications.

Neville Sanjana

Co-Founder

Neville Sanjana

Co-Founder

Dr. Sanjana is a co-founder and advisor of OverT Bio. He is also a Core Faculty Member at the New York Genome Center and Professor of Biology, Neuroscience and Physiology at New York University. Together with Dr. Legut, he developed the foundational cell programming and genome-scale overexpression platform in immune cells that powers OverT’s innovative immunotherapies.

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Over the last 2 decades, Dr. Sanjana has pioneered several gene editing and functional genomics technologies, including the first genome-scale CRISPR screens, and their applications in immunology, oncology and other diseases. He is a co-inventor of the foundational IP underlying CASGEVY, the first approved gene editing therapy for sickle-cell disease and other hemoglobinopathies. He holds undergraduate degrees from Stanford University, a PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT and completed his postdoctoral training with Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute. He is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Engineers and Scientists, the NIH New Innovator Award, the AAAS Wachtel Prize for Cancer Research, and Cancer Research Institute’s Technology Impact Award.

Christine Baker

Corporate & Business Development Advisor

Christine Baker

Corporate & Business Development Advisor

Christine Baker has extensive knowledge of oncology drug development, commercialization, and business development, with experience across modalities (small molecules to cell therapy) and company stages (pre-seed through public clinical stage biotech and large pharma). Previously, she served as VP, Oncology Global Early Commercial Strategy at Novartis, where she shaped the strategic R&D prioritizations and increased the competitiveness of pipeline assets. She led the business cases for the University of Pennsylvania collaboration, which resulted in the first ever oncology cell therapy (KYMRIAH), and for the multi-billion asset swap deal with Glaxo SmithKline. After Novartis, she was the Chief Operating Officer at Hookipa Pharma, a clinical stage immunotherapy company, where she secured multiple partnerships, including a deal with Roche recognized as a Top 20 Preclinical Deal by Endpoints News. She also held board and leadership roles at TYME Technologies and Schering-Plough.

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Most recently, she has been the CEO of SAAtient Therapeutics and Executive in Residence at Columbia University Technology Ventures. Christine holds an undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Dartmouth and an MBA from Rutgers.

Francesco Galimi

Medical Advisor

Francesco Galimi

Medical Advisor

Dr. Galimi is a physician-executive with over 30 years of experience in healthcare R&D, including leadership roles in private and public biotechs as well as large pharma companies. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Genenta, Inc. (Nasdaq: GNTA). From 2019 to 2024, he was Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Adicet Bio (Nasdaq: ACET), a company focused on allogeneic cell therapy technologies — including several gamma-delta T cell therapies — in hemato-oncology and autoimmune disorders.

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Previously, he served as Global Program General Manager at Amgen, where he led a portfolio of oncology programs from pre-IND to late-stage. Prior to Amgen, Dr. Galimi was Head of Clinical Development at Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Executive Medical Leader at GNF/Novartis. Dr. Galimi holds an M.D. from the University of Torino Medical School with a specialty certification in Medical Oncology, and a Ph.D. in Oncology from the University of Torino Medical School. He conducted his post-doctoral research, focused on gene transfer models in hematology, at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.

Tim Hagerty

Clinical Development Advisor

Tim Hagerty

Clinical Development Advisor

Dr. Hagerty has over 25 years of experience in the field of oncology, immuno-oncology, and cell and gene therapy. Most recently, he was the head of business operations, regulatory, pre-clinical and clinical development at Dantari Pharmaceuticals and Vice President of Life Science Strategy at Tempus AI. He was the first employee at Dantari — building the company to deliver two clinical stage assets. Prior to Dantari, he led the early development strategy and global development operations at Amgen, and before that, worked at Genentech’s Research and Early Development (gRED) and at Roche.

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Focused on oncology, Dr. Hagarty has helped develop many first-in-class cancer therapeutics over the past decade, examples being Herceptin SC, Polivy (polatuzumab vedotin), Tecentriq (Atezolizumab, Lunsumio (Mosunetuzumab, Lumakras (sotorasib), Imdelltra (Tarlatamab), and Aimovig (erenumab). He authored a start-up manual for NewCo building while at Westlake BioPartners and has extensive experience with pre- and post- IPO companies at an executive level. He received his Ph.D. in biomedical sciences and a M.B.A. from the University of Texas.

Mat Legut

Board Member

Mat Legut

Board Member

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Neville Sanjana

Board Member

Neville Sanjana

Board Member

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Sara Choi

Board Member

Sara Choi

Board Member

Sara Choi is a Partner at Wing VC. She brings her experiences as a founder and product leader to her collaborations, investing in and supporting founders early on their entrepreneurial journeys, often at inception. Sara partners with founders of transformative companies working to shape the future of medicine and healthcare. Prior to co-founding Airfox, acquired in 2017, she was head of product at Ciao Telecom, where she co-founded a new wireless carrier. Sara began her career at Google, leading teams as YouTube’s media lead and Google Partners’ product marketing lead.

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Sara holds a BA in biological anthropology from Harvard University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. She began and continues to run the Harvard Founder Network, a community of Harvard-affiliated CEOs. Since joining Wing, she has led investments and worked with more than 20 different companies at the intersection of biotechnology and AI.

Niraj Mehta

Board Member

Niraj Mehta

Board Member

Dr. Mehta is a Partner at ARTIS Ventures. He has deep experience in therapeutic drug development and genetic drug markets: Before joining ARTIS, he led business development at Emcure Pharmaceuticals (NSE: EMCURE), a large multinational generic drug company.

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He holds a PhD in Chemistry from Stanford University, where, in the lab of Dr. Elizabeth Sattely, he led the characterization of novel alkaloids and their biosynthesis. He completed his undergraduate studies with a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles and at ARTIS, focuses on biotherapeutics investing.

Omair Khan

Board Observer

Omair Khan

Board Observer

Omair Khan is a Partner at ARTIS Ventures, where he focuses on early-stage investments in Tech, Bio and Health. He serves on multiple boards across the firm’s portfolio and closely partners with founders throughout the life cycle of their companies. Drawing on physician-scientist training and multidisciplinary experience, Omair has worked across clinical medicine, biomedical research, industry, and government, with interests in immunology, oncology, endometriosis, and fertility.

Vicki Coutinho

Dr. Coutinho is a strategic advisor with 30 years of expertise across academia, biotech and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was the Head of Global Regulatory Affairs at Autolus Therapeutics, establishing the regulatory department and leading the regulatory strategy and submissions for multiple autologous CAR T cells, including obecabtagene autoleucel. She has also held executive management roles at GammaDelta Therapeutics (as VP of Regulatory Affairs and Quality) and at Takeda (Oncology Cell Therapy Innovation, Global Regulatory Affairs Oncology and Center of Excellence for Gene Therapies). As the Founder of Geni Consulting, she specializes in strategic drug development, regulatory affairs and CMC consultancy.

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Dr. Coutinho has extensive regulatory product lifecycle management from over 300 products, specializing in cell and gene therapies, biologics, biosimilars, chemical entities, medical devices and vaccines. She has provided senior regulatory oversight for over 15,000 regulatory applications and was previously responsible for process optimization, technology transfer, CMC, pre-BLA/BLA and commercial manufacturing of autologous fibroblasts at Fibrocell Science. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Physiology and Pharmacology from University College London, a PhD in Neuroscience from Bristol University, and conducted post-doctoral research at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Japan.

Julie Déchanet-Merville

Dr. Déchanet-Merville is the director of ImmunoConcEpT, a joint venture between France’s Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Bordeaux University with about 100 scientists. She discovered the antiviral role of gamma-delta T lymphocytes against cytomegalovirus and pioneered studies on their function and antigen specificity. Over the last 30 years, her lab has studied the function of human gamma-delta T cells in cancer, viral infections and organ transplantation, ranging from the molecular analysis of gamma-delta T cell antigens and the immunological functions of these cells, to the development of pre-clinical mouse models and human clinical trials.

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Her groups at ImmunoConcEpT are supported by a diverse array of funders, including INSERM, ANR, INCa and the European Commission. She leads the Horizon Europe project HORUS, which includes 24 partner institutions across 7 European countries, and the New Models in Oncology (NEWMOON) consortium. She previously served as deputy director for the SIRIC BRIO integrated cancer research center. Dr. Déchanet-Merville received her PhD in Immunology from the University of Lyon, studying B lymphocyte differentiation. In 2023, she received the CNRS Silver Medal for her pioneering work on gamma-delta T cells.

Joseph Fraietta

Dr. Fraietta is the Director of Translational and Correlative Sciences in the Center for Cellular Immunotherapies at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also a faculty member in the Department of Microbiology in the Perelman School of Medicine. His research is focused on identifying factors influencing response and resistance in patients undergoing cell-based immunotherapies, aiming to enhance therapeutic outcomes. His seminal work encompasses the first identification of molecular and cellular biomarkers tied to patient responses to CAR-T cell therapy: He discovered that a single epigenetically-programmed CAR-T cell can expand and effect sustained leukemia remission in a human. Building on this, he co-lead the first-in-human clinical trial of CRISPR-engineered T cells.

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He completed his doctoral studies in Microbiology and Immunology and proceeded to a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania with Drs. Carl June and Marcela Maus, contributing to the FDA approval of the first CAR-T cell therapy. In 2019, he was awarded the National Clinical Research Award and has spoken on Capitol Hill with congressional leaders about the importance of translational research.

Michael Kalos

Dr. Kalos is an internationally recognized expert in T cell therapy and immunotherapy, and brings over 28 years of experience and expertise in immuno-oncology, cell therapy, and cancer vaccines. He was previously the Vice President of Immuno-Oncology and Oncology Cell Therapies at Janssen and the Chief Scientific Officer of Immune-Oncology at Eli Lilly. More recently, he was Executive Vice President and Head of R&D at Arsenal Bio and the Chief Scientific Officer of cTRL Therapeutics. Prior to joining the biopharmaceutical sector, he spent a decade as a faculty member at City of Hope and the University of Pennsylvania. Notably, he is a co-inventor of the foundational IP underlying CTL019, which was licensed to Novartis and resulted in the groundbreaking approval of KYMRIAH, the first CAR-T cell therapy product.

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Currently, he holds leadership roles with several cell therapy organizations (Next Pillar, Orange Grove, IpinovyxBio, DomainOne, Alloy/82VS, Ypsilon and 7x8 Bio), and also serves on corporate and Scientific Advisory Boards for several public and private biopharmaceutical companies and international immunotherapy consortia and societies. Dr. Kalos has co-authored over 85 peer-reviewed manuscripts, as well as book chapters in the field of cancer immunotherapy, and has 26 issued patents in the field of cell therapy, immunotherapy, and vaccines.

Neville Sanjana

Co-Founder

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Andrea Schietinger

Dr. Schietinger is an Associate Member of the Immunology Program at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She has made pivotal discoveries on how T cells recognize developing tumors, including the nuclear factor TOX and its role in tumor-reactive T cell dysfunction. She aims to understand when, why, and how T cells become unresponsive to tumors. Her lab utilizes genetic cancer mouse models that mimic cancer development in patients to define the molecular and epigenetic mechanisms that are responsible for the failure to control and eliminate tumors. More recently, her lab has been interested in how T cells differentiate during the onset of autoimmunity, and specifically how the autoimmune T cell response is initiated and maintained.

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Dr. Schietinger received her PhD from the University of Chicago and University of Munich and conducted her postdoctoral training at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. She is a recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award, the Cancer Research Institute’s Lloyd J. Old STAR Award, the Pershing Square Sohn Prize in Cancer Research, and the American Association of Immunology- Becton Dickinson Investigator Award.

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About OverT

OverT Bio was founded to develop one-time, curative treatments for all cancer patients. To realize this vision, we are building cell therapies which are genetically programmed to persist and destroy tumors, overcoming their defense mechanisms.

Our novel approach to cell therapy programming is based on decades of pioneering research by our founding team and aims to break down the barriers to cure even in the most difficult-to-treat cancers.

But a safe and effective treatment is not enough.

We believe that every patient should have access to a potentially curative therapy without long waiting times, repeat visits at the hospital, and prohibitive costs. That is why from day one we set out to build our therapies at a scale that can make it possible.

Meet our team

Christine Baker

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Christine Baker

Corporate & Business Development Advisor

Miao Chen

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Miao Chen

Sara Choi

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Sara Choi

Board Member

Vicki Coutinho

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Vicki Coutinho

Julie Déchanet-Merville

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Julie Déchanet-Merville

Joseph Fraietta

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Joseph Fraietta

Francesco Galimi

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Francesco Galimi

Medical Advisor

Theodore Giavridis

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Theodore Giavridis

Maria Guarino

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Maria Guarino

Tim Hagerty

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Tim Hagerty

Clinical Development Advisor

Caroline Hanlon

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Caroline Hanlon

Eric Johnson

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Eric Johnson

Michael Kalos

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Michael Kalos

Omair Khan

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Omair Khan

Mat Legut

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Mat Legut

Co-Founder and CEO

Niraj Mehta

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Niraj Mehta

Navamallika Reddy

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Navamallika Reddy

Ivan Reyes Torres

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Ivan Reyes Torres

Mark Roberto

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Mark Roberto

Neville Sanjana

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Neville Sanjana

Co-Founder

Andrea Schietinger

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Andrea Schietinger

Ashley Thornal

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Ashley Thornal

Kristen Vogt

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