Dr Timothy Wells was previously Senior Executive Vice-President of R&D at Serono. There his responsibilities included drug innovation and development, taking programmes from target validation through pre-clinical development to completion of Phase I studies. He also managed Serono's R&D sites in Geneva, Boston, Paris, Ivrea (Italy), and Cambridge (UK). His research group in Geneva in the mid 90's focussed on cytokine immunology and identified several new chemokines and their receptors, and pioneered the application of these molecules in a wide range of diseases, from allergy through to HIV. Dr Wells has over 170 publications and several patent applications. Dr Wells has also published a number of papers on chemokines and their interactions with glycans, which is central to the mechanism of action of ProtAffin’s anti-inflammatory products.
The second new member of ProtAffin’s Scientific Advisory Board is Dr Marco Sardina MD, who is Medical Director, Strategic Development at Zambon Company. Zambon Company is an international pharmaceutical company headquartered in Milan, Italy that has a key focus on the commercialisation of anti-inflammatory, respiratory, and anti-infective products. Prior to his current role, Dr Sardina has worked at NicOx SA, Italfarmaco, Schering-Plough, Ciba-Geigy and Knoll in various positions. He has been involved in a number of pre-clinical, Phase I and Phase II programmes for anti-inflammatory, antihypertensive, antischemic, and antithrombotic products. He has particular experience in enabling the rapid entry of products into proof-of-concept and clinical studies. Dr Sardina is author on 80 scientific publications and is a regular speaker at international conferences.
Professor Andreas Kungl, CSO of ProtAffin commented: “I am delighted that we have attracted two such key figures to join ProtAffin’s Scientific Advisory Board. The depth of experience that Dr Wells and Dr Sardina have in pre-clinical and early stage clinical development will greatly assist ProtAffin in bringing our lead product PA401 into human clinical trials.
About ProtAffin AG
ProtAffin is a biotechnology company focused on developing novel biotechnology products for acute and chronic inflammatory diseases. The Company was spun-out from the Karl-Franzens University of Graz, Austria in July 2005 and secured seed finance of €1.3m in early 2006. In May 2007, ProtAffin completed a €2.7m Series A financing round led by Aescap Venture Management BV in Amsterdam. Z-Cube Srl, the venture arm of the Zambon Group also participated in this financing. ProtAffin has developed the CellJammer™ discovery technology platform to develop protein-based products that interfere with protein-glycosaminoglycan (GAG) interactions. The Company has nine employees and is based in Graz, Austria.
About PA401
ProtAffin’s lead anti-inflammatory programme is PA401 (previously called PA04-001). PA401 is a modified form of human IL-8 which is a potent, targeted anti-inflammatory protein. The product binds to glycans that drive cellular infiltration in inflammation with a higher affinity than wild-type IL-8. PA401 contains an amino acid deletion which means that unlike IL-8 it cannot activate leukocytes via the GPCR receptors CXCR1 and CXCR2. PA401 is in pre-clinical development at ProtAffin for the treatment of ischemia/reperfusion injury in the setting of kidney transplantation.
Contacts Dr Jason Slingsby, Chief Executive Officer ProtAffin AG Impulszentrum Graz-West Reininghausstrasse 13a A-8020 Graz Austria
T: +43 316 382 541 F: +43 316 382 541-4 E-mail: office@protaffin.com
www.protaffin.com
