Jeff Galvin (entrepreneur)

Jeffery A. Galvin (born June 13, 1958) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and business owner. Galvin is best known for his entrepreneurship in the biotechnology space, including the founding of gene therapy companies American Gene Technologies® (AGT) and Addimmune. 
After graduating from Harvard in 1981, Galvin begun his career in Silicon Valley, where he worked in executives positions and founded a variety of start-ups, many of which were sold to public companies. He then retired in 2002 to become an angel investor in real estate and high-tech, until he met with Roscoe Brady, a NIH researcher, in 2006. Brady introduced Galvin to viral vectors and their potential in gene therapy, inspiring Galvin to enter the biotechnology industry. Galvin then founded American Gene Technologies in 2007 to pursue the use of gene therapy as a potential cure a variety of diseases. He is the CEO of Maryland-based biotech company American Gene Technologies (AGT), and is expected to be named CEO of Addimmune, a newly formed HIV research company, following its public listing early in 2024. 
==Early Life==
According to an interview with LI Intake, he taught a weekend class at MIT on basic computer programming to high school and college students at the age of 14 after being informed that they currently did not have any weekend classes on computers. Galvin then eventually went to Harvard where we was a head teaching fellow for some of the largest classes and graduated with a degree in economics in 1981. 
==Early Business Career in Silicon Valley==
Upon graduation from Harvard University, Galvin began working at Hewlett-Packard's CSY Division as a software engineer.. Dissatisfied with the repetitive nature of the job, Galvin moved on to Apple where he became an international product marketing manager, a job which he was more naturally suited for
Following his successful career at Apple, Galvin spent the next 4 years in sales and marketing between Blyth Software and Claris Software, but when he found himself craving a a technical challenge, Galvin pivoted back into engineering and software development. 5 years at Argus software, 2 years at Command Audio Corporation, and a year at Allin Consulting centered Galvin in his area of expertise, as an entrepreneur and a VP/director of technical projects like software development and engineering. Many of Galvin's startups were bought by public companies, such as Argus software, a medical technology company, which was acquired by Varian Medical Systems in 2002. Galvin retired from high tech and start-ups in 2002 to Hawaii, where he became an angel investor in high tech and real estate
==Entry into Biotechnology==
Galvin's introduction to the biotechnology industry came in 2006, when he met with NIH researcher Roscoe Brady. Brady introduced Galvin to the technology of viral vectors, which are a technology that take advantage of virus' ability to insert their genetic code into cells in order to deliver genetic information to human cells for disease treatment purposes. This meeting inspired Galvin to come out of retirement and enter the field of biotechnology, specifically gene and cell therapy, starting with the founding of American Gene Technologies (AGT) in Rockville, Maryland in 2007. Galvin founded AGT with the goal of utilizing the power of gene therapy in order to relieve people from serious diseases, such as HIV, Cancer, Phenylketonuria (PKU), etc. 
Since its founding in 2007, AGT, with Galvin as CEO, has introduced programs for finding cures for HIV, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, PKU, and more, all using the lentiviral vector technology created by AGT. The HIV cure program entered the phase one of clinical trials in 2020 with its AGT103-T drug and successfully completed this phase in late 2022, publishing the data in the science journal Frontiers. The success with this trial led Galvin to launch a new spinoff company named Addimmune in 2023 that focuses solely on the potential HIV cure, while AGT focuses on gene therapy for other monogenetic diseases and cancer. 
==Recognitions==
* Life Sciences Voice Top Industry Leaders Award (2023)
* NABOE World Changing Business Award (2023)
* Montgomery County Business Hall of Fame Honoree (2022)
* Moxie Award for Healthcare & Biotech (2021)
* Maryland Tech Council CEO of the Year Nominee (2021)
* Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce Mid-Atlantic Innovator of the Year & People's Choice Winner (2021)
* BioBuzz Breakthrough Company of the Year (2020)
==See also==
* Biotechnology
* Gene therapy|Gene Therapy
* Silicon Valley
* HIV
* Cancer
* PKU
Category:1958 births
Category:American entrepreneurs
Category:American people
Category:Investors