Isabelle Rivière
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company

ISABELLE RIVIÈRE is the vice president of cell therapy sciences at Takeda. She has developed multiple strategies utilizing various immune cell types, hematopoietic stem cells, and pluripotent stem cells for the treatment of cancer, autoimmune diseases, and genetic blood disorders. After conducting her graduate studies at the Institut Curie and Whitehead Institute and her postdoctoral training at New York University, she joined the faculty of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 1999. There she focused on developing genetic approaches and manufacturing processes to enhance various cell types including T lymphocytes and stem cells for the treatment of cancer and genetic blood disorders. 

She oversaw the production of more than 500 CAR T-cell drug products for infusion to cancer patients and obtained Food and Drug Administration Breakthrough Therapy and Orphan Drug designation for the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia with CAR T-cells targeting CD19 in 2014. She has served on the boards of directors of the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies, and the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT). She is scientific co-founder of Juno Therapeutics and received the 2023 ASGCT Jerry Mendell Award for Translational Science. 

Photo courtesy of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center