Cytomos appoints new Commercial and Innovation Officer and Techno-Commercial Adviser: Driving the commercialisation strategy as the company evolves from an R&D to a product-based business

23 January 2024: TechBio company, Cytomos (www.cytomotos.com) is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Fernanda Masri as Chief Commercial and Innovation Officer and Dr Christel Fenge as Techno-Commercial Adviser. In her new role, Fernanda will spearhead Cytomos’ commercialisation strategy, as the company rapidly evolves the technology into a commercial product platform suitable from early R&D and Product Development through to manufacturing, building on the progress over the past decade.  The company’s vastly accelerated progress towards bringing its revolutionary technology to market for the benefit of biopharmaceutical and Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPS) and their Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisations (CDMOs) marks the start of a seismic disruption to the international single cell, label-free analytical industry through the arrival of AuraCyt™. Dr Christel Fenge will provide valuable input into both market potential and market penetration analysis and the company’s ‘go to market’ strategy. 

The company expects CE approval for its brand-new benchtop instrument, Celledonia™ to allow a full market launch in Q2.

Cytomos’s core product – its ground-breaking cell analysis AuraCyt™ platform technology – provides the life science industry with an innovative and simple tool that is set to transform biopharmaceutical discovery and development through its capability to obtain a multitude of data on the intrinsic properties of cells in real-time. 

Dr Fernanda Masri served as Head of Innovation Manufacturing and Collaborations at Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. She worked at Sartorius as a Technology Expert for Regenerative Medicine where she helped to accelerate development and manufacture of cell and gene therapies, making them more readily accessible to patients across the globe. Moreover, as a solutions manager for iPSCs, Fernanda was responsible for developing and implementing a global portfolio of tools and services, specifically geared to iPSC customers. Prior to this, she developed her process engineering skills at the Centre for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM) in Canada. 

Dr Christel Fenge previously served as Vice President, R&D Bioprocess at Cytiva with responsibility for upstream and downstream product development and Vice President, Marketing and Product Management Fermentation Technologies at Sartorius. She served as General Manager of Recipharm Biologics, a mid-sized CMO, and held senior management positions in biopharmaceutical development at AstraZeneca. She began her industrial career in cell culture process development at Pharmacia & Upjohn and was involved in the development of Refacto. 

“With my background in cell and gene therapy, I was very attracted to Cytomos because this is one of the key markets that the company is targeting and for which its transformative AuraCyt™ technology is geared: helping companies in this field progress their therapies through to manufacturing. There is a huge push in the cell and gene therapy market for in-line process analytical technologies to make it into the manufacturing suite. This made Cytomos an especially exciting prospect to go and work for. Technologies like AuraCyt™ have a strategic vision with a continuity from 

R&D product development, all the way through to manufacturing. I also see great scope for the technology’s penetration into growth markets that include large molecular biologics – including monoclonal antibodies – and novel cellular technologies” commented Dr Fernanda Masri. 

“Our AuraCyt™ technology provides a level of simplicity which meets a key industry demand necessary in the progression to manufacturing” she added. 

CEO, David Rigterink, commented: “We are delighted that Fernanda and Christel have joined the Cytomos team at this important juncture in the company’s development. Indeed, their commercial skills and expertise will be pivotal to the next phase in Cytomos’ development. Fernanda will spearhead the company’s commercialisation plans and our ‘go to market’ strategy and Christel will play a central role within it. This is a really exciting time in the company’s development and our revolutionary AuraCyt™ platform technology will run commercially via our brand-new benchtop instrument "Celledonia™" which will be available for selected customers in March and is scheduled for full market availability in May.” 

“The collective brain power of the company is a key asset which is pivotal to its success and Fernanda and Christel add to the exceptionally bright and seasoned talent pool that we have attracted and brought together. All our staff are contributing – through their respective skilled disciplines and company functions – to bringing our revolutionary technology to the market, so as to provide an asset to industry, which is set to radically change the way that processes are both monitored and controlled, whilst transforming velocity in biopharmaceutical R&D and fundamentally changing bioprocess PAT adoption”, he added.