With immediate effect, 2seventy bio, Inc. announced today that Charles Newton, Chief Financial Officer of Lyell Immunopharma, and Eli Casdin, Chief Investment Officer and Founder of Casdin Capital, have been appointed as additional independent members of the company’s board of directors. As of March 20, 24 Casdin Capital owned roughly 2.3% of 2seventy bio’s outstanding shares.
Dan Lynch, the chair of the board of directors, said, We are happy to welcome Eli and Charlie to the 2seventy Board. Eli is a well-known, accomplished investor in the healthcare and life sciences who has a long relationship with the company. Charlie has experience guiding businesses through critical pipeline value inflection points. Charlie brings substantial industry experience to the table, while Eli provides a vital shareholder viewpoint. We are sure that these two strong voices will lead our strategic re-alignment and redefine 2seventy to best serve our patients and shareholders.
Eli Casdin stated that now is an exciting moment to get more formally involved in 2seventy’s business evolution, as the company is at a turning point. He looks forward to joining the board and contributing my voice to the strategic thinking and work that lies ahead, especially because we have a commercial product that is positioned to reach more patients and a fantastic partner with whom to do so.
Charlie Newton remarked, 2seventy is an amazing company made up of a team that He have long held in high regard. He was excited to become a member of the Board and collaborate with the management group to progress treatments that extend patients’ lives.
As previously disclosed at the close of the deal with Regeneron, the appointment of Mr. Casdin and Mr. Newton means that the Board of Directors of 2seventy bio will temporarily have nine members through June, when Dan Lynch will resign from the Board and Nick Leschly will take over as Chairman. Following today’s declaration, it is anticipated that three directors will run for office at the 2024 Annual Meeting.
A separate statement from the company stated that it had received a notice of nomination for two candidates to run for 2seventy’s board of directors at the 2024 annual meeting from Engine Capital. The two nominations from Engine were part of the process that the Board’s Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee used to choose new directors, which led to the appointments of Messrs. Casdin and Newton today.
In the proxy statement for the company, which will be mailed to all shareholders who are eligible to vote at the company’s unscheduled 2024 Annual Meeting of Shareholders and filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Board will make its recommendation regarding the election of directors.
Mr. Casdin, a major shareholder in 2seventy, has devoted the last two decades to the analysis and investment of disruptive technologies and business models in the healthcare and life sciences industries. Since 2011, he has been the Chief Investment Officer and Founder of his own research investment company, Casdin Capital, LLC, which specializes in molecular medicine advances.
Eli was a Vice President at Alliance Bernstein’s “thematic” focused investment division before starting Casdin Capital. There, he conducted research and made investments about the potential effects of emerging technologies on the healthcare and life science industries. The 2011 edition of his Alliance Bernstein black book, “The Dawn of Molecular Medicine,” described the upcoming surge of investment prospects as well as the early but already accelerating wave of discoveries in the life sciences. Eli has worked with investing firms with an emphasis on healthcare, Cooper Hill Partners, and Bear Stearns.
Mr. Casdin is a member of multiple boards for both public and private companies. He is currently serving on the boards of two public companies, Standard BioTools, since April 2022, and during its merger with SomaLogic and GeneDx after its merger with Sema4 in May 2022. He is also a member of multiple non-profit boards, such as the New York Genome Center, Columbia University School of General Studies, and The Rockefeller University.
Mr. Casdin graduated with honors from Columbia Business School and Columbia University with a B.S.
Mr. Newton has worked in the healthcare industry for many years as an executive and in finance. Mr. Newton has been employed at Lyell Immunopharma, a fully integrated clinical-stage T-cell reprogramming firm that is developing a broad pipeline of cell therapeutics for patients with solid malignancies, as Chief Financial Officer since February 2021.
He held the positions of Managing Director and Co-Head of Healthcare Investment Banking in the Americas at Bank of America Merrill Lynch before to joining Lyell. Prior to this, he served as Managing Director and Co-Head of Healthcare Investment Banking for the Americas at Credit Suisse. He worked with Morgan Stanley for 14 years before that, rising to the position of Managing Director and Head of Western Region Healthcare Investment Banking. He formerly worked for Lehman Brothers as an investment banking analyst and Mercer Global Advisors as a financial analyst. Throughout his tenure in investment banking, Mr. Newton has raised about $60 billion in capital and advised on transactions worth $200 billion.
Since 2022, Mr. Newton has been a member of the Coherus BioSciences board. Prior to Roche purchasing Carmot Therapeutics, he was also a member of the board.
Mr. Newton graduated with a B.S. from Miami University and an MBA from Dartmouth College’s The Tuck School.
The reason behind our moniker, 2seventy bio, is TIME. Our mission is to work at the fastest possible speed of idea to action—270 miles per hour—in order to offer the individuals we serve more time since cancer takes away precious time. We are using our extensive knowledge of the immune system’s reaction to tumor cells in humans and the practical use of cell treatments to treat as many people as we can with the first FDA-approved CAR T cell therapy for multiple myeloma. Crucially, we stay committed to achieving our goal by being true to our why and maintaining a daily emphasis on our people and culture.
