AbCellera (Nasdaq: ABCL) announced today that Ester Falconer, Ph.D., has been appointed as Chief Technology Officer (CTO), effective January 28, 2021.

As CTO, Dr. Falconer will lead AbCellera’s long-term strategy in the development, aggregation, and integration of technologies that improve the speed and success of therapeutic antibody discovery from target to investigational new drug application submission.

“Dr. Falconer is an accomplished and creative technologist whose contributions have been indispensable to AbCellera’s success. She is also one of our strongest leaders and an effective mentor with a proven ability to build high-performing teams,” said Carl Hansen, Ph.D., CEO of AbCellera. “We welcome her to the executive team and are fortunate to have her leading our platform development.”

Prior to her promotion to CTO, Dr. Falconer was the Head of Research and Development, overseeing technology development in genomics, microfluidics, biochemistry, protein engineering, data sciences, and machine learning. She led the development of AbCellera’s Pandemic Preparedness Platform (P3) program and its deployment to combat COVID-19. This resulted in the discovery and development of bamlanivimab, the first monoclonal antibody therapy to receive Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat COVID-19, which has been authorized in more than eight countries and used to treat more than 125,000 patients.

“AbCellera is an exceptional company of talented people driving incredible technology advances,” said Dr. Falconer. “I am excited and honoured to continue developing our platform with this team, in our overall mission to power drug development for partners and ultimately for patients.”

Dr. Falconer joined AbCellera in 2015 as Senior Research Scientist, and subsequently advanced to become Group Leader of Molecular Biology and Antibody Expression in 2017, and Head of Research and Development in 2019. She earned a Ph.D. in genetics and cell biology from the University of British Columbia in 2005. Dr. Falconer completed a postdoctoral fellowship in stem cell biology and cancer research in 2015 that led to development of single cell technologies to map genomic rearrangements, applicable to genomic instability, genome assembly, and long-range haplotyping.

About AbCellera Biologics Inc.

AbCellera is a technology company that searches, decodes, and analyzes natural immune systems to find antibodies that its partners can develop into drugs to prevent and treat disease. AbCellera partners with drug developers of all sizes, from large pharmaceutical to small biotechnology companies, empowering them to move quickly, reduce cost, and tackle the toughest problems in drug development. For more information, visit www.abcellera.com.

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Source: AbCellera Biologics Inc.