Nijmegen, The Netherlands – July 21, 2008 – Syntarga B.V. today announced the appointment of Dr. Nitin K. Damle, a renowned industry expert in the field of Antibody-Drug Conjugation (ADC), as Advisor. Dr. Damle has more than 13 years of experience in both discovery and development of ADC products from preclinical stage to the market. In his former position as Director of Oncology/Immunology Research at Wyeth Research, Pearl River, NY, Dr. Damle led and managed the Discovery teams responsible for preclinical progress and was a core member of the Global Development teams for clinical development of ADCs, including the only marketed ADC, Mylotarg®, CMC-544 which is in phase III clinical development, and a number of candidates in preclinical evaluation. “I am delighted with my appointment as an Advisor to Syntarga and I am looking forward to contribute to the development of this exciting duocarmycin-based ADC technology through the preclinical phase,” comments Dr. Damle. “We are very pleased to have Dr. Damle engaged with Syntarga and we are convinced that his substantial scientific and biological expertise in the highly promising ADC field can help us to advance our payload technologies towards the clinic and to move to the next phase more quickly”, says Dr. Vincent de Groot, co-founder and CEO of Syntarga.
Nitin K. Damle, Ph.D. is an independent biopharmaceutical industry professional with significant drug discovery & development experience in the field of ADC and other biologics. In his most recent role at Wyeth, he played a pivotal role in moving forward multiple ADC products through preclinical and clinical stages. Dr. Damle is a co-inventor on 38 issued patents and multiple patent applications and has co-authored 86 scientific publications. Prior to Wyeth Research, Dr. Damle held scientific positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute and Cetus Corporation (now a part of Novartis). Dr. Damle received post-doctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine and pre-doctoral training in immunology at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, New York.
About Syntarga
Syntarga is a private biopharmaceutical company developing proprietary Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) technology for the treatment of cancer. Syntarga Potent Payload Technology comprises extremely potent cell-killing agents that are coupled to sophisticated linker technologies for attachment to tumor-specific monoclonal antibodies. The targeting properties of monoclonal antibodies combined with Syntarga’s unique and fully synthetic Linker-Drug payload chemistries yield ADC products with a high therapeutic window. The Company’s preclinical stage technologies are based on its duocarmycins, a class of DNA-damaging minor groove binding alkylating agents, which possess a range of unique properties making them highly suitable as ADC warheads. Syntarga applies its Potent Payload technology to generate and commercialize a range of Antibody-Drug Conjugate product candidates based on antibodies of its biopharmaceutical partner companies. For more information about Syntarga, visit its website at www.syntarga.com.
Contact:
Vincent de Groot, Ph.D.
CEO, Syntarga B.V.
T: +31 24 3652 878
E: fmhdegroot@syntarga.com
