Bakul Gupta

“My passion has always been to develop the best, and the most affordable solution possible to help patients live longer and healthier lives,” says Bakul Gupta, CEO and co-founder of ImmTune Therapies. “This is what led me to start a biotech startup, and has been the source of my motivation until now.”

ImmTune Therapies has developed a way to genetically modify cells directly inside patients to create curative cell therapies for fatal diseases such as cancer. Bakul sees this as a revolutionising technology.

“It allows us to manufacture therapies which are more potent at a fraction of the cost. In-patient cell engineering also creates these therapies in a matter of a few hours as opposed to the current standard of 3-6 weeks. All these advantages would allow us to get these therapies to all the patients who need them.”

The road to success hasn’t always been easy. One of the hardest and most surprising challenge for Bakul as woman of colour is to break the perception most of the sectors have around gender, race and age.

“There seems to be an unwritten (and widely accepted) rule that if you are a young woman entrepreneur, you will be unable to raise sufficient funds for your business. I, along with several other women, have proven that this is wrong, and even though there is a long way for us to go, I believe we have made steady progress and continue to overcome these challenges.”