Olawale Akintunde is a self-motivated forward-thinker and strategic leader with a patient-first, business excellence, and right-first-time mentality who specializes in the development, manufacturing, and disposition of cell and gene therapy drug products for the treatment of cancer-related diseases and rare diseases. With over 13+ years of experience in the biotechnology industry encompassing the areas of Technical Operations, Manufacturing, Quality Assurance, and Process Sciences, Olawale has built a reputation and proven track record of striving for excellence, pursuing collaboration and teamwork, executing results, and driving innovation. Olawale is expertly skilled in executing and managing manufacturing operations, technical operations activities, as well as proving technical analysis expertise in quality risk management and quality compliance resolution initiatives. His leadership and management philosophy is based on the principles of transformational leadership, ethics, and corporate accountability.
Under his strategic leadership at WuXi Advanced Therapies, Olawale successfully provided technical oversight of 6 CGT programs where he specialized as a process steward for allogenic and autologous CAR-T processes, as well as supported tech transfer and process scale-up initiatives. In addition, as a testament to his excellent strategic leadership as well as excellent professional competencies and dedication to scientific and business excellence, Olawale was a recipient of an “Executing Results” Bravo Award for leading the completion of manufacturing-related tasks to support a client’s first allogenic clinical CAR-T GMP run, which minimized quality risks, enhanced customer satisfaction, ensured compliance, generated revenue, and ensured patient treatment. He was also a recipient of a “Striving for Excellence” Bravo Award for identifying 4 moderate issues/quality risks during an internal CGT program audit where the corrective actions he implemented in collaboration with internal stakeholders reduced internal failure costs related to quality investigations by $40,000.
Before joining WuXi Advanced Therapies in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area, Olawale worked most notably as a junior to Lead Manufacturing Associate in the Clinical and Commercial Cell Therapy Manufacturing Group at Dendreon corporation, where he successfully supported senior and executive management in completing manufacturing-related GMP activities and Pre-Approval Inspection (PAI) projects for the manufacturing of Provenge (Sipulecel-T). This novel immunotherapeutic drug product served as the first FDA-approved cell-based cancer immunotherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer, including metastic, asymptomatic, or minimally symptomatic prostate cancer amongst others.
Olawale holds a Master of Business Administration degree from The Pennsylvania State University, where he graduated with honors and achieved multiple scholarships in recognition of his academic excellence coupled a quality enhancement award in recognition of his talents, character, academic achievements, and professional expertise in enhancing Penn State’s MBA program reputation and credibility. In addition, Olawale possesses a bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Kean University coupled with multiple professional certifications most notably in Six Sigma methodology and in Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion. Olawale enjoys participating in efforts and initiatives focused on advancing manufacturing capabilities that deliver life-changing therapies, which ensure reliable, consistent, and quality outcomes for clinical and commercial manufacturing programs. In his spare time, Olawale enjoys the company of his friends and family; volunteers for the Red Cross as a Disaster Recovery Specialist and has been an avid supporter of Manchester United (English Soccer Team) since his formative years growing up in Lagos, Nigeria.
