Dr. Arun Anand is a physician, cell and gene therapy business leader, and currently serves as a nominated expert on the Precision Biotherapeutics Committee, Department of Biotechnology (DBT/BIRAC), Government of India. He previously served as Chief Operating Officer and Board Director at Immuneel Therapeutics, where he was part of the team that built and launched Qartemi, an anti-CD19 CAR-T therapy in India.
With experience across biopharma, advanced therapies, and emerging markets, Dr. Anand now advises biotech companies, investors, incubators, and pharmaceutical organisations on drug development, regulatory strategy, business planning, and financing. His work also extends to policy, with a focus on building the infrastructure and frameworks needed for advanced therapies to reach patients in India.
His time in academic oncology brought him into the early development of biologics and the work of moving research toward clinical use. He later completed executive education in leadership, negotiation, and innovative ventures at Columbia Business School, Harvard Business School, and CIMIT (Center for Innovation in MIT).
During his time at Immuneel Therapeutics, Dr. Arun played a key role on building the infrastructure needed to develop and manufacture CAR-T therapy in India.
Qartemi was launched at around one-tenth of the US price. Dr. Arun also led the filing of an anti-BCMA CAR-T programme in India for Phase 2 clinical trials. His work has also been recognised internationally. Immuneel was featured in the Endpoints 11 list and India Today’s Top 100 Health @ 2047.
Dr. Arun currently serves as a nominated expert on the Government of India’s DBT Precision Biotherapeutics Committee.His policy interests include regulatory frameworks for cell and gene therapies, biomanufacturing, mRNA technologies, vaccines, and advanced biologics.
Dr. Arun is also involved in discussions around how India can develop advanced therapies for its own patients while building capabilities for global markets.
