Lift Therapeutics Appoints Daniel Passeri as Chief Executive Officer
- Veteran biotechnology executive, Daniel Passeri brings more than three decades of experience in oncology and immunotherapy drug development -
- Interim CEO Dr. Bo Rode Hansen resumes role as member of the Board of Directors of Lift Therapeutics and assumes role as President -
London, September 23, 2026 – Lift Therapeutics (‘Lift’ or ‘the Company’) today announced the appointment of Daniel Passeri, MSc, JD, as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Mr. Passeri brings over 30 years of experience in oncology drug development, corporate strategy, and executive leadership, most recently serving as CEO of Cue Biopharma, where he led the company from inception into clinical development. Mr. Passeri succeeds Bo Rode Hansen, PhD, a member of Lift’s Board of Directors since 2023, who was appointed Interim CEO earlier this year during the search for a permanent CEO. Dr. Hansen will resume his role as a member of the Board of Directors and assume the role of President, where he will continue to leverage his deep corporate strategy and drug development experience to support the Company’s clinical development progress. LIfT Biosciences has been renamed Lift Therapeutics.
“Dan’s appointment as CEO and Bo’s appointment as President comes at an important inflection point for Lift Therapeutics, as we prepare to advance our lead immuno-Modulatory Alpha Neutrophil (iMAN) program into first-in-human studies in early 2027,” said Antonin de Fougerolles, PhD, Chairman of the Board of Lift Therapeutics. “Working closely together, they bring broad strategic experience and expertise in developing novel cancer immunotherapies and building world-class organisations. I look forward to working with them both as we develop what we believe will become a disruptive breakthrough and a new standard of care for cancer patients. On behalf of the Lift Board, I also want to thank Bo for stepping in an interim capacity to establish strategic focus and look forward to their combined contributions in accelerating Lift into a clinical-stage company.”
“The innovative approach of the iMAN platform harnesses the potent and broad spectrum anti-tumour activity of N1 neutrophils to modulate the tumour microenvironment, representing a potential therapeutic breakthrough in cancer treatment,” said Daniel Passeri, Chief Executive Officer of Lift Therapeutics. “iMANs have the potential to overcome resistance to existing cancer therapies and address a significant unmet need for patients with metastatic solid tumours who have exhausted standard-of-care treatment options. I am honoured to join at this pivotal stage and work closely with Bo to lead the team as we advance our first iMAN therapeutic into the clinic in early 2027, while continuing to build a differentiated portfolio of transformational, allogeneic, neutrophil-based therapies designed to address some of the most challenging solid tumours.”
“We are very pleased to have Dan’s experience in drug development and corporate strategy at this important stage of the transition into a clinical -stage cancer therapeutics company. With Dan’s addition to Lift’s senior management team, we have the full depth of experience and judgement to effectively and efficiently guide the company forward through the next stages of our corporate development as we aim to establish iMANs as a new standard of care for treating cancer,” said Dr. Bo Rode Hansen, Director and President of Lift Therapeutics.
Mr. Passeri joins Lift Therapeutics with significant experience as an executive at leading biotechnology companies. From 2017 to 2025, he served as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of Cue Biopharma, where he successfully helped build functional teams to guide the company through discovery, preclinical and clinical development stages of corporate development for multiple immunotherapy programmes and helped establish collaborations with Merck, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Ono Pharmaceuticals. Previously, he was CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of Curis, Inc., a clinical-stage oncology company, where he also held the roles of President, Vice Chairman of the Board, and Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Planning during his 15-year tenure with the organisation. Mr. Passeri received a JD from George Washington University Law School, and an MSc in biotechnology from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine at the University of London.
About Lift Therapeutics
Lift Therapeutics is pioneering a new class of immunotherapy for hard-to-treat cancers based on allogeneic immuno-Modulatory Alpha Neutrophils (iMANs)®. Our proprietary, long-lived iMANs harness N1 neutrophils’ innate tumour-homing and infiltrating attributes, combined with their ability to directly kill cancer cells and orchestrate broader immune responses, offering a powerful treatment option to potentially overcome cancer resistance mechanisms, such as a suppressive tumour environment and immune evasion. Backed by deep immunology and neutrophil biology expertise, combined with a scalable manufacturing process, Lift Therapeutics’ platform represents a novel opportunity to reshape the standard of care for cancer patients with the prospect of having a major impact for patients.
For more information, please contact:
Lift Therapeutics
Email: info@Lift-Tx.com
Media enquiries
Trophic Communications
Jacob Verghese
Phone: +49 151 7441 6179
Email: Lift@trophic.eu
Attachment
© Copyright Globe Newswire, Inc. All rights reserved. The information contained in this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Globe Newswire, Inc.
