James Leba serves as Vice President and Head of Technical Operations at Made Scientific, bringing over 13 years of dedicated experience in the development, manufacturing, and commercialization of cell therapies. He has led technical operations from early clinical programs through commercial readiness across autologous and allogeneic platforms.
Most recently, James was Vice President of Technical Operations at Longeveron Inc., where he led manufacturing, process development, MSAT, supply chain, and facilities, oversaw on-site operations for early-stage clinical and CDMO activities, and played a key role in technical transfer and commercial readiness. Before that, he was Director of Operations at Charles River Laboratories, overseeing end-to-end biomanufacturing for programs from early to commercial phase, including CAR-T, TILs, and adherent cell platforms.
Earlier in his career, James held positions of increasing responsibility at Talaris Therapeutics, where he built and led the Phase III clinical manufacturing team, and at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, where he oversaw internal and external operations for BPX-501/Rivocel and supported CAR-T development and tech transfers. At MD Anderson Cancer Center, he contributed to GMP-compliant production of NK cells, virus-specific T-cells, and MSCs, and at Lonza Houston he supported early autologous and allogeneic cell therapy manufacturing and viral-based therapeutics production from bench to 2,000L scale.
James earned his Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology, summa cum laude, from the University of Houston.
Source: Made Scientific, lnkd.in on November 3, 2026. Republished with credit to the original author. Read the original article.
