About

Brian co-founded Link in 2022 with Robbie Majzner, M.D., and Crystal Mackall, M.D., and has served on the Board of Directors. He previously co-founded and was the CEO of Stemcentrx, a next-generation ADC company that pursued novel targets with limited or no normal tissue expression, including DLL3 and SEZ6, and built the industry’s first end-to-end ADC GMP manufacturing facility. Abbvie acquired Stemcentrx in 2016 for $6.2 billion, which at the time was the largest private acquisition of all time in biotechnology. Prior to founding Stemcentrx, Brian was a Founding Partner at Qatalyst Partners and Vice President at Goldman Sachs where he helped companies raise private venture capital, execute IPOs and other financings, advised on mergers and acquisitions, and gained valuable experience working with CEOs at various stages of development. Brian has held other biotechnology CEO roles, including of recently acquired Convergent Genomics, and Everest Detection, and served on the Boards of Directors and provided initial capital to multiple biotech companies including Enliven Therapeutics (Nasdaq: ELVN). Brian is a graduate of Virginia Tech.

Jie D’Elia is Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Link Cell Therapies. She brings extensive leadership experience across company building, clinical development and business development at emerging and global biopharmaceutical companies.

Jie previously served as Chief Executive Officer of SystImmune, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing multi-specific antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). There, she led the company through a period of rapid growth and built a clinical organization that filed multiple Investigational New Drug (IND) applications and initiated several global clinical trials, including a registrational study. Before SystImmune, she spent eleven years at Bristol Myers Squibb, most recently as Senior Vice President of Business Development for Oncology, Hematology and Cell Therapy, where she helped shape the company’s pipeline through partnerships and acquisitions across oncology, hematology, cardiovascular disease, virology, fibrosis and cell therapy. Earlier in her career, she was Vice President and Global Head of Business Development at Simcere Pharmaceutical and held roles at AstraZeneca, Boston Consulting Group and Baxter Healthcare. Over the course of her career, she has led more than $40 billion in strategic partnerships and mergers and acquisitions.

Jie holds a Ph.D. from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from Columbia Business School.

Mark Wallet joined Link Cell Therapies in October 2024 as the Chief Scientific Officer. In his prior role, Mark was VP, Head of Immuno-oncology at Century Therapeutics. In this role, he led pre-clinical development of gene-edited iPSC-derived CAR-NK and CAR-T cell therapies for cancer.

Prior to joining Century, Mark assembled and led the translational science team at Fate Therapeutics where he gained experience in allogenic donor-derived NK cell therapies and iPSC-derived cell therapies for cancer. Through his experience at Fate and Century, Mark has contributed to multiple successful first-in-human INDs including genetically engineered cell therapy products containing up to six genetic modifications.

Before joining the biotech field, Mark was Principal Investigator as a faculty member at the University of Florida in the Department of Pathology, Immunology, and Laboratory Medicine. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Friedrich Graf Finckenstein, M.D., joined Link Cell Therapies in July 2026 as the Chief Medical Officer. In his prior role, Friedrich was Chief Medical Officer of Iovance Biotherapeutics where he progressed the clinical portfolio of Tumor Infiltrating Lymphocyte (TIL) therapies across indications and next generation products and contributed to the approval of AMTAGVI® (lifileucel) in the US, Canada and Australia as the first approved cell therapy for a solid tumor.

Before Iovance, Friedrich was Global Head of Oncology Translational Medicine at Roche Pharma Research and Early Development (pRED) in Basel, Switzerland, where he led clinical development and biomarker efforts. Earlier, Friedrich held clinical leadership roles at Bristol Myers Squibb, spanning early through late-stage development, including contributions to the approval of Opdivo® (nivolumab) in lung cancer.

Friedrich holds a medical degree from the University of Hamburg, Germany, is a board-certified pediatrician and has conducted cancer research at the Ludwig Institute, San Diego Branch, the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Hamburg.

Jerry Cacia joined Link Cell Therapy in November 2023 as the Chief Operating Officer.  In his prior role, Jerry served as the Chief Technical Officer at Graphite Bio.  In this role, he built the CMC function that developed and delivered Graphite’s autologous gene-edited stem cell treatment for Sickle Cell disease to the clinic.

Prior to joining Graphite, Jerry was with Genentech and Roche for over 32 years.  During his tenure, he held various senior leadership positions across the CMC disciplines, including technical development, manufacturing, and quality. In his most recent position, Jerry served as head of global technical development at Roche during which time he supported a pipeline that included over 80 new molecular entities across multiple modalities, and more than 100 projects in various stages of development.

Jerry holds a BA degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California at Santa Cruz.