Cambridge, UK, 9 May 2017 – Kymab Group Limited (“Kymab”), a leading human monoclonal antibody biopharmaceutical group, announces the appointment of Dr Sonia Quaratino as its first Chief Medical Officer. Dr Quaratino will manage the clinical development of the Group’s expanding therapeutic antibody portfolio.
Dr Quaratino is an immunologist and joins Kymab from Novartis, where she has served as Global Clinical Program Leader – Transitional Clinical Oncology, responsible for the clinical development of proprietary therapeutic antibody programmes in immuno-oncology. Prior to her role with Novartis, Dr Quaratino was Senior Medical Director and Immunology Advisor at Merck Serono, where she was responsible for the clinical development of various immunomodulators. Dr Quaratino also has over 20 years of professional experience in biomedical research in UK academic institutions including Imperial College London and the University of Southampton.
“I am delighted to welcome Sonia to Kymab,” says Dr David Chiswell, CEO of Kymab, on the appointment. “With her demonstrated track record in clinical development and medical affairs, Sonia is a superb addition to Kymab‘s management team as we prepare for our first clinical trials. Sonia’s deep understanding of the global environment in clinical research complement those of Dr Arndt Schottelius, our new Executive VP of R&D who recently joined us from Morphosys. These two key appointments add a high calibre of depth and provide further validation to our burgeoning and advancing R&D pipeline.”
Dr Sonia Quaratino, newly appointed Chief Medical Officer of Kymab added: “Kymab’s emerging human antibody pipeline provides great potential to improve patient treatment options in our four main therapeutic areas of focus: immuno-oncology; auto-immunity; haematology and infectious disease. The Kymouse™ technology that underpins the company contains a full set of human immunoglobulin light and heavy chain genes that can produce 10 trillion different antibodies, thus significantly increasing the chances of finding new best-in-class antibodies. I am pleased and proud to be joining the Kymab team.”
Dr Quaratino has an extensive professional background which includes a Medical Degree and a Doctorate in Hematology-Oncology from the University of Palermo, Italy and a Ph.D. in Immunology from Imperial College London, UK. For a number of years Sonia was a Professor of Immunology at the University of Southampton, a leading institution for innovative research. During her time in Southampton her focus was on the pathogenic mechanisms underlying chronic inflammatory diseases and the interface between autoimmunity and cancer.
About Kymab
Kymab Group Limited (“Kymab”) is a leading biopharmaceutical group focused on the discovery and development of fully human monoclonal antibody drugs using its proprietary Kymouse™ antibody platform.
Kymab has raised over US$220m of equity financing which includes $100m Series C financing. It has an experienced management team with a successful track record in drug discovery and development and has numerous therapeutic antibody programmes in immuno-oncology, auto-immunity, haematology, infectious disease and other areas.
About Kymouse™
Kymouse™ is a transgenic human antibody platform to discover and develop fully human monoclonal antibody drugs. Work published in Nature Biotechnology demonstrate that the Kymouse™ technology yields an antibody library constituted from 100 trillion different antibodies. From this deep library, rare high-quality antibodies can be selected and developed into therapeutics. Kymouse™ has been designed to maximise the diversity of human antibodies produced in response to immunisation with antigens. Selecting from a broad diversity of fully human antibodies assures the highest probability of finding that rare drug candidate with best-in-class characteristics. The Kymouse™ naturally matures these molecules to highly potent drugs obviating the need for further time-consuming modifications. Kymab is using the platform for its internal drug discovery programmes and in partnership with pharmaceutical companies.
For more information please see http://www.kymab.com
Kymab and Kymouse are trademarks of Kymab Limited.
