Rigontec GmbH Appoints Dr. Jörg Vollmer As Chief Scientific Officer

BONN, Germany & MUNICH & CRAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Rigontec, the leader in RIG-I targeting RNA therapeutics, today announced that Dr. Jörg Vollmer has joined the Company as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Vollmer brings to Rigontec more than 17 years of drug discovery and development experience including leadership roles at Nexigen GmbH, Pfizer and Coley Pharmaceutical Group. Dr. Vollmer will be responsible for leading Rigontec’s R&D efforts and advancing the Company’s RIG-I-based platform focused on discovering and developing treatments for oncological and infectious diseases. He will report to Dr. Christian Schetter, CEO of Rigontec, and will be based in Munich.

“I believe Christian and the team at Rigontec have positioned the Company for success and I welcome the opportunity to make a positive impact on the ongoing development of this valuable new therapeutic approach to help patients suffering from cancer and infectious diseases.”

“Rigontec has reached a stage of both platform and pipeline development when expanding the leadership to acquire additional industry and scientific experience is extremely important and therefore we are very pleased to welcome Jörg Vollmer to our team,” said Dr. Christian Schetter, CEO of Rigontec. “He has an extensive record of innovative scientific contributions and will bring years of expertise and insight to the Company.”

“I am enthusiastic about joining Rigontec as Chief Scientific Officer,” said Dr. Vollmer. “I believe Christian and the team at Rigontec have positioned the Company for success and I welcome the opportunity to make a positive impact on the ongoing development of this valuable new therapeutic approach to help patients suffering from cancer and infectious diseases.”

Chair of Rigontec’s Scientific Advisory Board, Dr. Jim Barsoum added: “Rigontec has established its leadership in the RIG-I pathway based on the work of its scientific founders and the progress achieved so far by the company. It is a great moment to have Jörg join the effort to further leverage the potential of the platform.”

Dr. Vollmer brings to Rigontec significant knowledge and experience in the areas of immunology, oncology and infectious diseases, which he obtained in various R&D and executive positions over the course of his career. Most recently, Dr. Vollmer was CEO and Managing Director at Nexigen GmbH developing cell penetrating peptide therapeutics targeting tumor stem cell signaling pathways. Prior to this, he held the position of Managing Director and Site Head at Pfizer’s Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Unit in Düsseldorf, Germany where he was responsible for therapeutic oligonucleotide research. Dr. Vollmer started his career at Coley Pharmaceutical Group where he focused on the development of immune modulatory oligonucleotides targeting Toll-like receptors, and held several positions leading up to Vice President Discovery & Development before the company was acquired by Pfizer in 2008. Upon the acquisition he refocused Coley Pharmaceutical’s Düsseldorf site towards gene knock-down and transcriptional gene silencing technologies including RNA interference and antisense technologies and their formulation and delivery. Dr. Vollmer studied biology at the Albert-Ludwigs-University in Freiburg and received a Ph.D. from the Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology at the Department for Cellular Immunology in Freiburg, Germany. He currently is an Executive Board Member at BioRiver e.V. and Chairman of the Technology Advisory Board at Silence Therapeutics.

About Rigontec

Rigontec is the leader in RIG-I targeting therapeutics. Utilizing our proprietary RIG-I agonist platform, we harness one of the most essential pathways in the innate immune system to pioneer a novel immuno-oncology treatment approach. Rigontec’s proprietary agonists specifically activate RIG-I, inducing both immediate and long-term anti-tumor immunity and have proven substantial local and systemic tumor regression in several relevant in vivo models. In addition to malignant diseases, our innovative bifunctional RNA molecules can be developed for the treatment of infectious and inflammatory diseases.