Sol Barer, Ph.D., Joins Heat Biologics’ Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board

MIAMI, FL--(Marketwire - June 02, 2011) -

Heat Biologics, a clinical-stage immunotherapy company, announced the appointment of Sol J. Barer, Ph.D., to its Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board. Dr. Barer joins the board’s five internationally known experts in the fields of immunology and immunotherapy and will advise Heat Biologics on current and future research and clinical testing.

Dr. Barer is chairman of Celgene Corp., an integrated global biopharmaceutical company engaged primarily in the discovery, development and commercialization of novel therapies for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases through gene and protein regulation. His tenure with the company covers decades and originally began in 1980 when he was with Celanese Research Company and formed the biotechnology group that was subsequently spun out to form Celgene.

Prior to his current position, Dr. Barer spent 18 years leading Celgene as president, COO and CEO. Before that, he served as senior vice president, science and technology; vice president/general manager of the Chiral Products Division; and vice president, technology. He holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Rutgers University and a bachelor’s degree from Brooklyn College.

“Sol Barer brings to our board a commanding knowledge of biotechnology as both a science and business. The depth and breadth of his expertise are unmatched in the industry, and his contributions to Heat Biologics will be invaluable,” said Eckhard Podack, M.D., Ph.D., chairman of Heat Biologics’ Scientific Advisory Board.

“We are thrilled to have Dr. Barer join our world-class Scientific Advisory Board, which includes some of the most respected clinical researchers in the fields of immunology, cancer and infectious disease,” said Jeffrey Wolf, chairman of the board, Heat Biologics (www.heatbio.com). “His guidance will be invaluable as we expand our clinical pipeline with a wide range of ImPACT-based drugs.”

Heat is entering Phase II clinical trials with its lead drug, HS-110, for use against non-small cell lung cancer. HS-110 is a vaccine therapy built on Heat’s ImPACT technology, which reprograms tumor cells to release an important immuno-protein called gp96-Ig, which robustly generates a potent immune response to cancer cells by mobilizing and activating killer T cells against multiple tumor antigens. This stimulates the patient’s own immune system to fight specific stealth targets, such as, in the case of HS-110, abnormal proteins that are expressed by lung cancer cells.

About Heat Biologics
Heat Biologics (www.heatbio.com) is a clinical-stage company focused on developing its novel off-the-shelf “ImPACT” therapeutic vaccines to combat a wide range of cancers and infectious diseases. ImPACT therapy exploits the natural ability of antigens to activate the immune system by utilizing live, off-the-shelf, genetically modified cells injected into a patient to elicit a powerful immune response against the disease target. Heat’s cutting-edge ImPACT Therapy is based upon heat shock protein gp-96, a chaperone protein found in all human cells and normally tethered to our cells with a leash called the KDEL sequence. ImPACT Therapy removes this KDEL leash, thus transforming allogeneic living cells into powerful machines that continually pump out gp96 and their chaperoned antigens to activate the immune system against the full spectrum of antigens expressed by a patient’s disease.

Heat is currently generating very positive toxicity, efficacy and immune response results in its NIH-sponsored Phase I human clinical trials against non-small cell lung cancer and plans to enter Phase II trials for this indication in the second quarter of 2011. Positive prophylactic and therapeutic data against SIV (the primate equivalent of HIV) has also been generated in a large 36-primate NIH-sponsored study, the first evidence of ImPACT’s ability to combat viral diseases. Heat plans to initiate additional clinical trials against bladder and ovarian cancer later in the year.

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Technorati: non-small cell lung cancer NSCLC immunotherapy Phase II clinical trials therapeutic vaccines