Occam Recruits CMO for In Vivo Cell Therapy Leader Umoja Biopharma

In January 2025, Occam recruited Luke Walker, MD as Chief Medical Officer of Umoja Biopharma, a Seattle-based, clinical-stage biotechnology company aiming to develop in vivo cell therapies that improve the reach, efficacy, and access of CAR T-cell therapies in oncology and autoimmunity. Luke will lead Umoja's clinical, regulatory, and medical functions, including its two clinical stage in vivo CAR T programs in B cell malignancies.

‍

Luke, a highly successful serial CMO, brings more than two decades of hematology and clinical development experience, previously served as Chief Medical Officer of Harpoon Therapeutics through its acquisition by Merck in 2024. Prior to Harpoon, Luke led clinical development for programs at Seagen. He holds an MD from the University of Oklahoma's College of Medicine.

‍

Umoja recently announced the closing of a $100 million Series C financing. Double Point Ventures and DCVC Bio co-led the financing, which was participated in by new and existing investors, including ARK Invest, Cormorant Asset Management, MPM Capital, Qiming Venture Partners USA, RTW Investments, Alexandria Venture Investments, SoftBank Vision Fund 2, CaaS Capital, Emerson Collective Investments managed by Yosemite, K2 HealthVentures, Myeloma Investment Fund, University of Minnesota Endowment, and other prominent life science investors.

‍

Related Placements

1. Suzanne “Sue” Bruhn CEO of Prominent Rare Disease Research Foundation
2. Vatnak Vat-Ho as CBO at Ryvu Therapeutics
3. Steve Colletti as CSO of Korro Bio
4. Theo Karaletsos as VP, Data Science/ML at insitro
5. Sana Hafeez as Head of People at Unlearn
6. Kevin Webster as CSO at Frontier Medicines
7. Occam Places Mark Strobeck on the Board of Windtree