Mercedes Segura Gally

Mercedes Segura Gally is a senior executive with extensive experience on Advance Therapy Medicinal Products. Her interests are on all aspects of pharmaceutical development for Cell and Gene Therapies. She has worked on all phases of clinical development from pre-IND to marketing application (BLA and MAA) and helped grow start-up companies to medium size. Mercedes completed her undergraduate studies in pharmacy and a MSc in Biotechnology at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina. She enrolled to a PhD program at l´Université Laval in Quebec and conducted research studies at the Biotechnology Research Institute of the National Research Council Canada (BRI-NRC). Her thesis focused on the production and purification of gamma-retroviral and lentiviral gene therapy vectors. Mercedes pursued post-doctoral studies at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Spain, where she mainly focused on bioprocessing and analytical characterization of AAVs, Adenoviral vectors and VLP vaccines. In 2013, Mercedes joined bluebird bio, a gene therapy company located in Cambridge, MA. During her 7 years at bluebird, she helped build the company’s infrastructure to advance pre-clinical and clinical gene therapy programs throughout different stages of development. She led several scientific teams including Vector Manufacturing, Process Characterization and Analytical Characterization, mRNA Process and Analytical Development and Cellular Process Development for both HSC and T-cell based gene therapy programs. Mercedes joined AVROBIO in 2020, where she helped develop early and late-stage CMC strategies for AVROBIO portfolio of lysosomal storage disorder (LSD) programs and brought Drug Product Process and Analytical Development capabilities in house. Currently, Mercedes leads the Process Development group at Elevate bio where she is responsible for executing on the high-level strategy and day-to-day operations for a wide variety of cell and gene therapy products and processes.