ADVANCING AN INDUSTRY

UNH alum-led ElevateBio ushers in an innovative business model for cell and gene therapy manufacturing

When Michael Paglia ’02G joined the ElevateBio team in 2017 as its fourth employee, he knew that co-founders David Hallal ’88, Vikas Sinha and Mitchell Finer were approaching cell and gene therapy production in a groundbreaking way. Their goal, and his, was to merge science and technology, creating infrastructure and acquiring state-of-the-art development and manufacturing technologies to support their company’s therapeutic needs and those of other biotechnology firms, both large and small.

“All the technology we have — our processes for manufacturing novel therapies, gene editing via our company Life Edit Therapeutics, Inc. and creating regenerative medicine programs with our stem cell lines — was put into place at the very beginning,” says Paglia, chief operating officer, during a tour of the company’s 140,000-square-foot facility, known as ElevateBio BaseCamp, in Waltham, Massachusetts. “Now we’re in a position to support partners who are creating and manufacturing their own therapies — and advance the industry as a whole.”

That initial infrastructure investment has allowed ElevateBio to deliver a broad array of process development and current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) manufacturing services to more than a dozen partners, among them Boston Children’s Hospital, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Abata Therapeutics. Paglia, who was hired to help build BaseCamp, says that the facility will nearly double in size over the next several years, providing more space for protein engineering, virology and immunology labs and cGMP manufacturing, analytics and quality control facilities.

“It’s the vision that Hallal, Sinha and Finer had — owning all aspects of the creation process, from manufacturing to development — that drew me to ElevateBio. And now we’ve built this beautiful technology-forward facility and put together an amazing team, allowing us to rapidly advance lifesaving therapy treatments.”

Path to Discovery

Paglia’s career in biological sciences began when he was an undergraduate at Providence College. He learned the basic skills, like cell culturing and tissue sectioning, while volunteering at a Rhode Island Hospital lab. When the lab’s funding ended, he looked for graduate programs to further advance his training.

“What struck me when I visited and toured the University of New Hampshire was meeting the professors I would work with at COLSA and the college’s emphasis on allowing students, especially graduate and Ph.D. students, to rotate through different labs and discover what research they were really drawn to,” he says. “On top of that, the emerging science in these labs and the advanced instrumentation the students were using set UNH’s program apart from most other programs out there.”

It was while working toward a master of science degree in biochemistry that Paglia began researching in the Cote Lab and developed a lifelong friendship with his graduate advisor, Rick Cote, a professor of molecular, cellular and biomedical sciences at UNH and director of the Center of Integrated Biomedical and Bioengineering Research.

“It’s gratifying to see that the knowledge and skills Mike acquired in my lab provided the analytical foundation in protein biochemistry that contributed to his passion for developing novel therapies for human diseases,” says Cote.

After graduating from UNH, Paglia began a two-decade-long career, joining startup biopharmaceutical and drug therapy companies and helping lead them from just a few employees to several hundred staff members. Along the way, he’s helped take three therapies from discovery to FDA approval. He’s witnessed the explosive growth and revolutionary advancement of New England’s biological and biopharmaceutical industries. And he’s established a knack for identifying and hiring top talent and building and leading multifunctional drug development teams.

Next-Gen Advancement

ElevateBio has hired more than 20 UNH graduates since its inception. Paglia says the training that these graduates gain in their degree programs, the investment UNH makes in its biological sciences infrastructure (for example, the new Spaulding biosciences building) and the eagerness of these alums to continue learning after they arrive are key reasons why they make up 5 percent of ElevateBio’s 400-person workforce.

“They understand that UNH is just the beginning of their careers,” Paglia explains, “and they come in with strong foundations in some of the advanced scientific processes we use here on a day-to-day basis.”

Kristen Bland ’14 serves as a quality assurance senior manager of sterility assurance at ElevateBio. She began her career in cell therapy manufacturing after earning a bachelor’s degree in genetics from COLSA and still uses the foundational skills, especially in aseptic practices and controls, that she learned as an undergraduate.

“When I began working in this industry, I started out in the Quality Assurance Training Department,” she says. “I had a lot of academic experience from UNH in basic cell culture development and sterility management, and those skills, as well as my background as an undergraduate teaching assistant, transferred well to that initial role before I moved on to operations.”

Alianna Provencal ’21 (above) is an associate with ElevateBio’s analytical testing core; she joined the company after graduating from UNH with a bachelor’s degree in biomedical science. She started in microbiological quality control but discovered she preferred working in the labs and moved to the testing core.

“I’m exposed to so many new training opportunities in my new role, and I’ve been able to really advance the initial lab processes that I learned at UNH,” says Provencal.

Back on the tour of BaseCamp, Paglia says he’s been fortunate to have worked with some amazing teams over the years. He can now support and advance a new generation of biotech workers, whether by hiring them at ElevateBio or by connecting them to other leaders in the industry.

“Seeing young professionals come in at an early level and advance to lead teams of their own or become senior executives,” he says, “is just an incredibly rewarding part of my job.”

Rick Cote, professor and director of the UNH Center for Integrated Biomedical and Bioengineering Research, and Michael Paglia '02G, CEO of ElevateBio