March Biosciences Announces Appointment of Gurpreet Ratra, Ph.D., as Chief Business Officer
Biotech veteran with over 25 years of business development, strategy and operational experience joins March Bio’s management team
HOUSTON, Dec. 03, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- March Biosciences (March Bio), an emerging clinical stage biotechnology company committed to combating challenging cancers and other diseases, today announced the appointment of Gurpreet Ratra, Ph.D., as Chief Business Officer.
Dr. Ratra brings over 25 years of experience in the life science industry, including cell and gene therapy leadership and equity research. In this newly created role at March Bio, Dr. Ratra will oversee business development and corporate strategy initiatives.
“We are delighted to welcome Gurpreet to March Bio,” said Sarah Hein, Ph.D., Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of March Biosciences. “His proven expertise in shaping strategy and driving successful transactions will be invaluable as we advance our lead program MB-105 through Phase 2 studies for T-cell lymphoma. We recently received RMAT designation from the FDA, creating a path towards MB-105’s potential accelerated approval.”
Dr. Ratra commented, “I look forward to working closely with my colleagues to further develop our corporate strategy. There is much potential in leveraging March Bio’s comprehensive CAR-T cell therapy pipeline to pursue transformative business transactions and collaborations.”
Most recently, Dr. Ratra served as Chief Business Officer at Kate Therapeutics, where he led business development, finance and human resources functions. Prior to that, he was Chief Business Officer at Skyline TX and Head of Business Development at Spark Therapeutics (now part of Roche), where he played an integral role in completing several large pharma licensing agreements and managing collaborations. Earlier in his career, he held leadership positions at Adverum Biotech and Intrexon Corporation, and conducted equity research at the investment bank Piper Jaffray (now Piper Sandler).
Dr. Ratra holds a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of London, St. Bartholomew’s Medical School, and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
About MB-105
MB-105 is a potential first-in-class autologous CD5-targeted CAR-T cell therapy in development for CD5-positive hematologic malignancies, including T-cell lymphoma (TCL), T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL), chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), and mantle cell lymphoma (MCL). The therapy employs a proprietary CAR design that enables selective targeting of malignant cells and streamlined manufacturing without additional genetic manipulation. MB-105 has received Orphan Drug Designation and the Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy designation from the FDA for the treatment of relapsed/refractory CD5-positive TCL. The multicenter Phase 2 trial (NCT06534060) is enrolling at twelve sites across the United States.
About March Biosciences
Houston-based March Biosciences, launched from the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy (Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Methodist Hospital, Texas Children’s Hospital), is dedicated to addressing challenging cancers unresponsive to current immunotherapies. Its lead asset, MB-105, is a CD5-targeted CAR-T cell therapy currently in Phase 2 clinical development for patients with relapsed/refractory T-cell lymphoma. March Biosciences is backed by leading life-sciences investors including 4BIO Capital, Mission BioCapital, TMC Venture Fund, Volnay Therapeutics, Alexandria Venture Investments, KdT Ventures, Mansueto Investments, Modi Ventures, Portal Innovations, and the Cancer Focus Fund, as well as non-dilutive support from the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) and the NIH SBIR program.
Learn more at www.march.bio.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Any statement describing March Biosciences’ goals, expectations, financial or other projections, intentions or beliefs is a forward-looking statement and should be considered an at-risk statement. Words such as “believes,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “could,” “should,” “would,” “seeks,” “aims,” “plans,” “potential,” “will,” “milestone” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain these identifying words. Actual results may differ materially from those projected in these forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially include, but are not limited to, the clinical development of MB-105, the progress of clinical trials for pipeline candidates, regulatory approvals, market demand for new therapies, competitive dynamics in the biotechnology sector, and macroeconomic conditions.
Contacts:
Corporate:
Business Communications
corporate@march.bio
Media:
Josephine Galatioto
ICR Healthcare
MarchBioPR@icrhealthcare.com
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