Affimed Announces Appointment of Arndt Schottelius, M.D. Ph.D. as Chief Scientific Officer
March 17 2020 - 7:30AM
Dr. Schottelius, former executive at
Kymab, MorphoSys and Genentech, brings extensive innate immunity
expertise and successful record of advancing discovery research
into preclinical and clinical development
Heidelberg, Germany, March 17, 2020
– Affimed N.V. (Nasdaq: AFMD), a clinical-stage
immuno-oncology company committed to giving patients back their
innate ability to fight cancer, today announced the appointment of
Dr. Arndt Schottelius as Chief Scientific Officer, effective April
2020. Dr. Schottelius will lead Affimed’s discovery, translational
innovation and platform engineering teams. In addition, Dr.
Schottelius will lead the company’s preclinical development
activities, initiatives to generate additional innate cell engagers
based on its proprietary fit-for-purpose ROCK® (Redirected
Optimized Cell Killing) platform and efforts to strengthen
Affimed’s intellectual property. Dr. Schottelius will also take a
lead role in furthering Affimed’s ongoing Genentech partnership and
other key collaborations.
“We are thrilled to have Dr. Schottelius join
our team,” said Dr. Adi Hoess, Affimed’s CEO. “With over 20 years
of industry experience, Dr. Schottelius has a unique background in
building therapeutic antibody pipelines and a strong track record
in advancing drugs through development. Importantly, he also is
seasoned in establishing productive collaborations that have led to
increasing the value of his previous companies’ pipelines.”
Dr. Hoess added, “Earlier this month, we
welcomed another industry veteran, Dr. Andreas Harstrick as
Affimed’s Chief Medical Officer. With these two key appointments,
we have strengthened our management team, and Affimed is ideally
positioned to continue its leadership in innate immunity by
broadening our portfolio of innate cell engagers and successfully
launching additional clinical programs.”
Most recently, Dr. Schottelius was Executive
Vice President and Head of Research & Development at Kymab
Group Limited, where he was responsible for expanding the
therapeutic antibody portfolio. Dr. Schottelius previously served
as Chief Development Officer at MorphoSys AG, developing the
portfolio of proprietary therapeutic antibody programs in cancer
and immunology. While at MorphoSys, he was instrumental in
in-licensing tafasitamab (MOR208, formerly Xmab®5574), a humanized
anti-CD19 Fc-enhanced monoclonal antibody that attracts an immune
response from natural killer cells and macrophages. Dr. Schottelius
drove strategic direction and development of the MOR208 program
into multiple fully-sponsored monotherapy and combination therapy
Phase 2 trials, which were the basis for a fast-to-market
registration path. On the business development front, Dr.
Schottelius led the scientific efforts to successfully establish
partnerships with GSK and Celgene. Prior to his role at MorphoSys,
Dr. Schottelius was a Medical Director, Immunology Development at
Genentech Inc., where he directed early and late-stage clinical
development programs of therapeutic antibodies. Before joining
Genentech, Dr. Schottelius held science and management positions in
immunology research at Schering AG and Berlex Biosciences.
“I am excited to join the Affimed team,” said
Dr. Schottelius. “A case of advanced cancer in my immediate
family highly motivates me to find better and safer cancer
therapies. The innate immunity space is largely untapped and a
strong driver in my decision to join Affimed is the promise the
ROCK® platform holds to deliver clinically meaningful,
transformative medicines to a broad set of underserved cancer
patient populations. I am specifically excited to lead the
translational work supporting the two clinical stage programs AFM13
and AFM24, as well as accelerate the pre-clinical pipeline programs
AFM28 and AFM32. I look forward to working with the team of
incredibly talented and experienced scientists at Affimed.”
Dr. Schottelius studied medicine in Freiburg,
Germany and at the Royal Free Hospital in London. He holds a PhD
and MD degree from the Albert Ludwigs University of Freiburg and is
a lecturer at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with a
habilitation in Experimental Internal Medicine. He practiced
medicine as a resident physician in gastroenterology at the
Charité-Universitätsmedizin in Berlin, Germany, held a research
fellowship from the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America and
was a postdoctoral researcher at the Lineberger Cancer Center,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, before working in the
pharmaceutical industry.
About Affimed N.V.
Affimed (Nasdaq: AFMD) is a clinical-stage
immuno-oncology company committed to giving patients back their
innate ability to fight cancer. Affimed’s fit-for-purpose ROCK®
platform allows innate cell engagers to be designed for specific
patient populations. The Company is developing single and
combination therapies to treat hematologic and solid tumors. For
more information, please visit www.affimed.com.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This press release contains forward-looking
statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact
are forward-looking statements, which are often indicated by terms
such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,”
“goal,” “intend,” “look forward to,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,”
“predict,” “project,” “should,” “will,” “would” and similar
expressions. Forward-looking statements appear in a number of
places throughout this release and include statements regarding our
intentions, beliefs, projections, outlook, analyses and current
expectations concerning, among other things, the value of our ROCK®
platform, our ongoing and planned preclinical development and
clinical trials, our collaborations and development of our products
in combination with other therapies, the timing of and our ability
to make regulatory filings and obtain and maintain regulatory
approvals for our product candidates, our intellectual property
position, our collaboration activities, our ability to develop
commercial functions, clinical trial data, our results of
operations, cash needs, financial condition, liquidity, prospects,
future transactions, growth and strategies, the industry in which
we operate, the trends that may affect the industry or us and the
risks, uncertainties and other factors described under the heading
“Risk Factors” in Affimed’s filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission. Given these risks, uncertainties and other
factors, you should not place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements, and we assume no obligation to update
these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes
available in the future.
Affimed Investor and Media
Contact
Gregory Gin, Head of Investor RelationsE-Mail:
IR@affimed.com
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