Orchard Therapeutics’ Bobby Gaspar named in inaugural 2024 TIME100 Health List

Congratulations to UCLB spinout Orchard Therapeutics Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Dr Bobby Gaspar, who has been named in the inaugural 2024 TIME100 Health, an annual list recognising the impact, innovation, and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals in health this year.

Orchard Therapeutics, recently acquired by Kyowa Kirin with the goal of accelerating the delivery of new gene therapies to patients around the globe, revealed that the full list and related tributes will appear in the May 13, 2024 issue of TIME, available online.

Dr. Gaspar is an honorary professor of paediatrics and immunology at the University College London (UCL) Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health. He studied medicine and surgery at Kings College in London before completing his Ph.D. at the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health.

“I am incredibly humbled, privileged, and immensely proud to be included on this esteemed list of influential and accomplished people shaping the future of health care,” said Dr. Gaspar. “While these accolades are often attributed to individuals, I truly believe this honour extends to the entire team at Orchard Therapeutics and our global network of clinical and academic collaborators. It is because of your collective efforts that we are transforming the treatment landscape for previously intractable diseases, and I share this recognition with all of you.”

Dr. Gaspar is a world-renowned physician and scientist, as well as an accomplished executive with more than 30 years of experience in medicine and biotechnology. He has been a pioneer in the evolution of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) gene therapy, bringing it from some of the first studies in patients into late-stage clinical trials, and ultimately through Orchard’s first regulatory approvals in Europe and the U.S., enabling the delivery of these potentially transformative medicines to eligible children.

His unparalleled expertise and deep relationships with key physicians and treatment centres around the world are integral to Orchard’s efforts to identify patients with severe genetic diseases through targeted disease education, early diagnosis and comprehensive new-born screening.

“Bobby is a visionary and authentic leader who inspires the very best in his colleagues and peers,” said Frank Thomas, president and chief operating officer of Orchard Therapeutics. “He is a tremendous ambassador for the entire field of HSC gene therapy, and I am thrilled his indelible contributions to the advancement of human health are being recognised though his inclusion on this prestigious list. Throughout his career, Bobby has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to patient care—first as a physician treating children with devastating genetic diseases, then as a clinical academic who led multiple trials that have shown HSC gene therapy can successfully correct the underlying cause of these conditions, and now as a pioneering executive working to unlock the full potential of this approach to deliver life-changing therapies to patients in need. I am fortunate to call Bobby my friend and business partner and appreciate the editors of TIME for bestowing him with this well-deserved honour.”