BALTIMORE, Jan. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Alba Therapeutics Corporation today announced the appointment of Sefik S. Alkan, Ph.D. as its Executive Vice President, Discovery. Dr. Alkan will be responsible for leading Alba's biology, chemistry and analytical product development activities.
"We are delighted to announce the appointment of Sefik as our Executive Vice President, Discovery," said Blake Paterson, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Alba Therapeutics. "Sefik's appointment confirms our commitment to leading research efforts in mucosal biology, barrier function, and innate immunity. Sefik is an accomplished scientific executive with over twenty-five years of leadership in drug discovery and management with top pharmaceutical companies including Hoechst Marion Roussel, Aventis, Novartis and 3M Pharmaceuticals. His experience, which ranges from inflammation, autoimmune diseases, allergy and asthma to oncology and immunology, is a great compliment to our product development strategy," Dr. Paterson added.
Prior to joining Alba, Dr. Alkan headed the Immunology Department at 3M Corporation's Pharmaceutical Division, leading research efforts in Toll-Like Receptor (TLR) agonists as vaccine adjuvants and in tumor therapy. From 1998 to 2003, Dr. Alkan headed Hoechst Marion Roussel's (now Sanofi-Aventis) Biochemistry and Immunology department. From 1980 to 1998, Dr. Alkan worked for Novartis Pharma AG (formerly Ciba-Geigy) in Basel, Switzerland leading drug discovery efforts focused on type I/II interferons, monoclonal antibodies and transcriptional regulation of Th1/Th2 cytokines in roles of increasing responsibility. Before joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Alkan spent 3 years at the renowned Basel Institute of Immunology, Switzerland studying the molecular mechanisms of the interactions between APC, T-helper cells and B cells.
Dr. Alkan was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Microbiology at the University of California, San Francisco and holds a Ph.D. in Immunology and Microbiology and a B.S. degree in Health Sciences from the University of Hacettepe, Ankara, Turkey. Sefik Alkan has published 74 original research articles, 16 review articles and book chapters, and has been awarded 23 patents.
About Alba
Alba Therapeutics Corporation is a privately held biopharmaceutical company based in Baltimore, Maryland. Alba is dedicated to commercializing disease-modifying therapeutics and vaccine and drug delivery adjuvants based on the zonulin pathway. Alba's lead molecule, AT-1001, is targeted towards the treatment of Celiac Disease and other autoimmune diseases including IBD and Type 1 Diabetes. AT-1001 is currently under investigation in a multicenter, double blind, placebo controlled Phase II dose ranging study to evaluate the safety, tolerability and efficacy of AT-1001 in 79 Celiac Disease subjects during gluten challenge.
Contact: Stuart Sedlack, SVP, Corporate Development Phone: 410-319-0780 E-mail: info@albatherapeutics.com Web site: http://www.albatherapeutics.com
Alba Therapeutics CorporationCONTACT: Stuart Sedlack, SVP, Corporate Development of Alba TherapeuticsCorporation, +1-410-319-0780, or info@albatherapeutics.com
Web site: http://www.albatherapeutics.com/
