Team

Mark Curtis is the CEO of LineaBio. Mark has spent the last 15 years in the cell and gene therapy industry, working in manufacturing and drug development. Prior to joining LineaBio, Mark was a CMC lead for the Fabry, Pompe and Gaucher programs at AVROBIO, an ex vivo gene therapy company focused on rare disease. Before AVROBIO, Mark spent several years in the cell and gene technologies business unit at Lonza, a global CDMO, in roles spanning strategy, acquisitions and business development. Mark started his career at CCRM as a business development analyst and developed a passion for stem cells and regenerative medicine.

Michael May is the President and CEO of CCRM. Michael completed his BASc in Chemical Engineering at the University of Toronto in 1991. He then went on to complete his PhD in Chemical Engineering in 1998, at the University of Toronto, under the supervision of Michael Sefton. From 2000-2010, Michael was the President, Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Rimon Therapeutics Ltd., a Toronto-based regenerative medicine company developing novel medical polymers that possess drug-like activity. Michael sits on a number of Boards and advisory committees.

Mitchel Sivilotti is the Chief Executive Officer of OmniaBio Inc. Most recently, Mitch was the Chief Operating Officer at CCRM. Over the course of six years at CCRM, Mitch was responsible for creating a contract development and manufacturing organization with 200 employees, which grew to become OmniaBio Inc. Before joining CCRM, Mitch was the President of TotipotentRX Corporation, which designed and commercialized sterile disposables for the cell and gene therapy market, and developed a therapeutic pipeline of candidates for cardiovascular diseases. Mitch’s professional career began at Pall Corporation, a Danaher company, where he held several business management and technical positions focused on process equipment and sterile consumables for the advanced therapies market.

Dr. Sven Kili is the Chief Development Officer at CCRM. Before his role at CCRM, Dr. Kili was Chief Executive Officer of Antion Biosciences, a company developing multiplex cell engineered allogeneic cell therapies. Prior to this, he served as VP & Head of Development Cell and Gene Therapies at GSK Rare Diseases, where he led the teams responsible for the development and commercialization of eight gene therapies for various rare genetic disorders. Dr. Kili has also held the position of Senior Director, Cell Therapy and Regenerative Medicine at Sanofi (Genzyme) Biosurgery, where he led the clinical development, approval, and commercialization of the first combined ATMP product in the EU, MACI®. He holds an academic chair at UCL in London and sits on various boards and industry committees. Dr. Kili trained as an orthopedic surgeon in the U.K. and South Africa.

Lise Munsie is VP, iPSC Technology Platform at CCRM. Lise leads the iPSC platform at CCRM and OmniaBio, managing various iPSC reprogramming, gene editing, cell banking, scale-up and differentiation projects. For over a decade, her team has been focused on enabling these processes for manufacturing in GMP environments to produce clinically relevant doses of cell therapy products. The initial successes from these efforts have been used as models for other internal technology platforms, including immunotherapy.
Lise earned her PhD at McMaster University, focusing on drug discovery in neurodegenerative diseases. Following this, she completed a post-doctoral research fellowship at the Centre for Applied Neurogenetics at the University of British Columbia, where she focused on genetic causes of Parkinson’s Disease.

As Director, Process and Analytical Development at CCRM, Janet Rothberg leads the iPSC team focused on gene editing and iPSC reprogramming. Her team manages the development of early-stage technologies and enabling them for clinical and commercial readiness. The team has experience with novel technologies like single-cell plating and tracking clonality, and moving these unit operations from the process development lab into GMP. Janet’s work has focused on scale-up of iPSC-derived cell therapies and their translation from 2D to 3D. She has extensive experience in the development of iPSC differentiation protocols including cardiac, hepatocyte, pancreatic and blood cell lineages. Janet earned her PhD from the University of Ottawa in cellular and molecular medicine, focusing on blood cell development.