Chaminda Salgado's Biography

Chaminda Salgado, Cell & Gene Therapy Medicinal Process Delivery Leader, GlaxoSmithKline

I started my career in 1995 at the (then) Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment at Porton working in the Gene Probes group which were involved in developing portable technologies to detect Biological Weapons for the battlefield, weapons inspectorates and homeland securities. I then moved to Biopharm at GSK in 2000 where I initially setup, developed and ran CMCs qPCR facilities, for monitoring the process and potency measurements of drug products. I later lead efforts in electronic data integrity and early stage (lead candidate to clinic) project leadership for some DNA vaccine assets. In 2014 I joined Cell and Gene Therapies as a Medicinal Process Delivery Leader and had responsibilities leading the CMC effort in order to launch (clinic to commercialisation) Strimvelis, the first gene therapy for children. Strimvelis targets an ultra rare disease ADA-SCID (adenosine deaminase severe combined immunodeficiency) a form of bubble boy/baby syndrome, however for more common indications the current analytical capability would be a considerable bottleneck to address. So now in my current role the focus is to seek out solutions to resolve our current analytical challenges in preparation to commercialise Cell and Gene Therapy assets that will address more common indications.