Just a few months after surfacing at Orca Bio following his early 2025 departure from Legend Biotech, Steve Gavel has taken on the chief commercial officer role at yet another cell therapy biotech.
Gavel is now CCO at Cabaletta Bio, effective immediately, according to a Tuesday announcement.
Cabaletta is using its CABA platform to develop engineered T cell therapies targeting autoimmune diseases. The company is planning to file for FDA review of its lead candidate, dubbed rese-cel, as a myositis treatment in 2027.
As commercial chief, Gavel will head up the entire global commercial strategy for rese-cel, per the announcement.
He arrives at the Philadelphia-based biotech with plenty of cell therapy experience under his belt. He previously spent three years at Celgene—prior to its acquisition by Bristol Myers Squibb—first as executive director of U.S. commercial strategy and then as U.S. commercial development lead for the CAR-T portfolio.
After that, Gavel logged more than six years at Legend Biotech. As senior VP of global cell therapy commercial development, he built out the company’s commercial organization and helped spearhead the launch of the Johnson & Johnson-partnered Carvykti in relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma.
Most recently, after leaving Legend at the start of this year, Gavel joined Orca Bio as chief commercial officer in June, tapped to lay the commercial groundwork for Orca’s first allogeneic T-cell immunotherapy, Orca-T. Just last week, Orca announced that the FDA had accepted the biologics license application for Orca-T for priority review, with a decision date set for next April.
In a statement, Cabaletta CEO Steven Nichtberger, M.D., highlighted Gavel’s previous experience commercializing cell therapies, adding, “We are confident Steve’s leadership will attract a world-class team to prepare for and to execute the potential launch of rese-cel.”
Gavel’s arrival at Cabaletta comes just a few days after the biotech shared promising study results showing that rese-cel was able to completely eliminate the overreactive B cells of two patients with a rare autoimmune disease without preconditioning chemotherapy, delighting analysts and investors alike.
The results come from one of six phase 1/2 trials that Cabaletta is currently carrying out to test rese-cel in a range of autoimmune diseases, including myositis, lupus, scleroderma and myasthenia gravis.