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Jun 23, 2022

Biotech Arcellx hires general counsel

Maryam Abdul-Kareem previously worked at Kinnate Biopharma

Biotechnology company Arcellx has hired Maryam Abdul-Kareem as general counsel.

Abdul-Kareem previously worked at Kinnate Biopharma as deputy general counsel, a role in which she was responsible for both legal and compliance matters. Before her time with Kinnate Biopharma, she spent seven years at AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in positions of increasing responsibility, most recently as assistant general counsel for corporate. In that role she led negotiations on numerous strategic transactions, including a license deal with the University of Oxford for global rights to a Covid-19 vaccine.

Before AstraZeneca, Abdul-Kareem was an associate in the corporate and securities practice at law firm Pepper Hamilton (now Troutman Pepper). She began her career as a study technician/assistant toxicologist in the genetic toxicology team at Covance Labs (now Labcorp) and as a clinical marketing specialist at Given Imaging (now Medtronic).

Clinical-stage Arcellx works on immunotherapies for patients with cancer and other incurable diseases.

Rami Elghandour, Arcellx chair and CEO, says in a statement: ‘Maryam is an exceptional leader and thought partner who brings a broad skillset managing complex legal matters including business development and commercial compliance responsibilities that are valuable as we scale our company through clinical development and toward commercial release.

‘In addition to her experience, Maryam is a champion of gender equity and diversity, which made her an outstanding fit for the culture we’re building at Arcellx.’

Ben Maiden

Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...