By Ron Leuty  – Staff Reporter, San Francisco Business Times – March 15, 2020

Dr. Arie Belldegrun, a pioneer in the burgeoning area of cell therapy, has the coronavirus and a simple message: Get tested.

Belldegrun, the cofounder and executive chairman of cell therapy company Allogene Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: ALLO) of South San Francisco, in a company statement Friday was described as having a dry cough and a “transient low-grade fever,” had chosen to self-quarantine and was tested for COVID-19. He was told Friday that the test was positive.

Continuing his quarantine at home, Belldegrun said he has experienced no additional symptoms and doesn’t know where he came in contact with the virus.

“As a physician, Dr,. Belldegrun felt it was important to issue this statement to recognize that this can happen to anyone and to help destigmatize exposure,” the company said. “He wants to encourage people to monitor updates from public health officials and seek testing should they begin to develop symptoms.

Belldegrun, the company said, also is “putting his support behind the health care system to make testing available to those in need.”

Belldegrun is the third known COVID-19 case connected to the Bay Area biotech industry, which also is working to find treatments, vaccines and ways to test for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Last week, Genentech Inc. said two people who were on its campus in early March later tested positive for the virus. Meanwhile, Biogen Inc. (NASDAQ: BIIB) of Cambridge, Mass., has said at least 70 COVID-19 cases have been tied to people who attended or were in close contact with attendees of a company strategy meeting in Boston late last month.

Allogene said Belldegrun had been in direct contact with only three Allogene executives — and no other company employees — over the past two weeks. None of those individuals have reported flu-like symptoms associated with infection of the upper respiratory virus but have remained in self-quarantine after being involved in a recent banking conference.

Belldegrun founded cancer cell therapy company Kite Pharma before selling it in fall 2017 to Gilead Sciences Inc. (NASDAQ: GILD) for $12 billion. He launched Allogene with Dr. David Chang and investor Joshua Kazam the next year and quickly took it public to develop so-called allogeneic cell therapies that can be offered broadly and off-the-shelf to treat cancer and potentially a range of diseases. (/Kite and other cell therapy companies have concentrated on autologous cell therapies, where an individual patient’s own cells are extracted, re-engineered, grown and placed back into that specific patient.)

“While there is currently no impact to the work being done at Allogene, we will continue to take proactive measures to put the safety and well-being of employees, and the community at large, first,” the company said.

Bay Area organizations such as Gilead of Foster City, Vir Biotechnology Inc. (NASDAQ: VIR) of San Francisco and the University of California, San Francisco-affiliated Gladstone Institutes are working on potential treatments and diagnostics for COVID-19. Meanwhile, Roche Molecular Solutions of Pleasanton last week won the Food and Drug Administration’s first emergency use authorization for a commercially available test for COVID-19. That was followed by an emergency use OK Friday by the FDA for a test developed by Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO), which has operations in South San Francisco.