NEW YORK, Nov. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Immunic, Inc.
(Nasdaq: IMUX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company
developing a pipeline of selective oral immunology therapies aimed
at treating chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases, today
announced the formation of a Scientific-Medical Advisory Board
(SAB). Inaugural members include Drs. Fred D. Lublin, Bruce E. Sands, Jerrold R. Turner and
Paul J. Utz, all internationally
recognized experts in their respective fields of inflammatory and
autoimmune diseases. The newly created SAB will provide management
with external scientific review and high-level advice with regard
to the company's preclinical and clinical development activities
and product pipeline.
"The establishment of a Scientific-Medical Advisory Board marks
an important milestone for Immunic and we are honored to have such
highly distinguished experts as our inaugural members," stated
Daniel Vitt, Ph.D., Chief Executive
Officer and President of Immunic. "Together, their extensive
knowledge, relationships and insights will be invaluable as we
continue to advance our pipeline, and in particular our lead
program, IMU-838, for which we recently reported very positive
results from our phase 2 EMPhASIS trial in relapsing-remitting
multiple sclerosis and which currently is in additional phase 2
trials for ulcerative colitis, primary sclerosing cholangitis and
COVID-19."
Fred D. Lublin, M.D.
Dr. Lublin is a neuroimmunologist with a special interest in
immune functions and abnormalities that affect the nervous system.
He currently serves as the Saunders Family Professor of Neurology
and the Director of the Corinne Goldsmith Dickinson Center for
Multiple Sclerosis, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New
York. As one of the world's foremost experts on experimental
therapies for multiple sclerosis (MS), Dr. Lublin transformed
patient outcomes with pioneering studies of Interferon beta-1b
before the drug received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) in 1993 to treat the relapsing-remitting form
of the disease. Over the years, his work has received funding from
the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Multiple
Sclerosis Society (NMSS) and the International Progressive MS
Alliance, among other organizations.
Dr. Lublin has served on the Board of MS Hope for a Cure and the
National Multiple Sclerosis Society. He also served as past
Chairman of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (USA) advisory committee on clinical trials of
new MS drugs and Chairman and National Board Member of the Clinical
Advisory Committee of the New York City Chapter of the National MS
Society. He has published numerous scientific articles and has
served as a consultant to the NIH, as well as to pharmaceutical and
biotechnology companies in all phases of drug development,
including in preparation for drug presentation to the FDA and its
advisory panels.
Dr. Lublin earned his medical degree from Jefferson Medical
College in Philadelphia, PA and
completed an externship at the National Hospital for Nervous
Diseases in Queen Square, London.
He concluded his formal training in New
York with an internal medicine internship at Bronx Municipal
Hospital, Albert Einstein Medical Center, and a neurology residency
at New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center. In 2018, Dr. Lublin
received the Clifford H. Goldsmith
Award for Outstanding Service and the June Halper Lifetime
Achievement Award from the Consortium of MS Centers in recognition
of his long-standing history of innovative research and commitment
to excellence in caring for patients with MS.
Bruce E. Sands, M.D.,
M.S.
Dr. Sands is the Dr. Burrill B. Crohn Professor of Medicine and
Chief, Dr. Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology, Icahn
School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
in New York. Prior to joining
Mount Sinai, Dr. Sands was Medical
Co-Director of the Crohn's & Colitis Center at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where he also served as the hospital's
Acting Chief of the Gastrointestinal Unit as well as Associate
Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical
School.
A longtime advocate for continued translational research in
Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, Dr. Sands is widely
recognized for his innovative treatment of IBD and for his clinical
investigations of new therapeutics. He was among the first to
report the efficacy of infliximab, a drug used to treat autoimmune
diseases in ulcerative colitis, a result later confirmed in large,
multi-center randomized controlled trials.
Dr. Sands has served as the Chair of the Clinical Research
Alliance of the Crohn's Foundation of America, Chair of the
Immunology, Microbiology and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Section of
the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) and Chair of the
International Organization for the Study of IBD. He is an AGA
fellow (AGAF) and a fellow of the American College of
Gastroenterology (FACG). His work has appeared in several leading
peer-reviewed journals, including the New England Journal of
Medicine, for which he is also a reviewer, Gastroenterology and
Gut. He served as an Associate Editor for the leading journal,
Gastroenterology, from 2011 to 2016.
Dr. Sands received his medical degree at Boston University School of Medicine, MA and
completed a residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the
University of Pennsylvania in
Philadelphia. He completed his
clinical and research fellowships at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Sands also
holds a Master of Science in epidemiology from Harvard School of Public Health.
Jerrold R. Turner, M.D.,
Ph.D.
Dr. Turner is a Professor of Pathology and Medicine at
Harvard Medical School. Dr. Turner also
serves as a Senior Pathologist in the Department of Pathology at
Brigham and Women's Hospital and directs the Laboratory of Mucosal
Barrier Pathobiology. Work in the laboratory focuses on tight
junction biology and intestinal diseases. These studies have been
continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health for over
25 years.
Dr. Turner previously served as the Sara and Harold Lincoln
Thompson Professor at the University of
Chicago, and as Associate Chair and the Associate Residency
Director in the department of Pathology at the University of Chicago. Earlier in his career, he
was Assistant/Associate Professor of Pathology at Wayne State University School of Medicine.
Dr. Turner has been published in numerous scientific journals
throughout his career. He is the Founding Editor-In-Chief of
Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the basic
and translational science journal of the American
Gastroenterological Association, and has served as the Associate
Editor of Gastroenterology, the American Journal of Pathology, and
Laboratory Investigation.
Dr. Turner earned his medical degree and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University and completed his
residency in anatomic pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital,
where he also completed clinical and research fellowships in
gastrointestinal and hepatobiliary pathology. He is board certified
in anatomic pathology.
Paul J. Utz, M.D.
Dr. Utz is an expert in the study of human and murine
autoantibodies and autoantigens, apoptosis signaling pathways,
animal models of autoimmunity, proteomics and multiplexed assay
development for biomarker discovery. He is currently Professor of
Medicine – Immunology & Rheumatology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he
directs a lab focused on the normal immune system and how it
differs with the immune system of patients with immunodeficiency
disorders, infections, and autoimmune diseases. Among the
autoimmune diseases being studied are systemic lupus erythematosus,
rheumatoid arthritis, MS and IBD. In addition to trying to better
understand the pathogenic mechanisms involved in autoimmune and
inflammatory diseases, the lab is interested in developing
bench-to-bedside technologies, including diagnostics and
therapeutics, for human immune diseases.
In addition to his research, Dr. Utz has been an innovator in
medical student education. He is the Stanford Associate Dean for
Medical Student Research, focused on promoting physician
investigator development across the physician-scientist career
continuum, and is founder of the Stanford Institutes of Medical
Research (SIMR), one of the country's largest and most respected
immersive high school research programs. He also serves as the
Emeritus Director of the Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP)
at Stanford.
Dr. Utz has won numerous faculty teaching awards for his work in
the Department of Medicine and Immunology Interdepartmental Ph.D.
Program at Stanford, and elsewhere. He is a member of the
Scientific Advisory Boards of several biotechnology and
pharmaceutical companies, and has co-founded three Bay Area
companies.
Dr. Utz earned his medical degree from the Stanford University School of Medicine. He
completed his internal medicine residency, rheumatology fellowship,
and post-doctoral training at Brigham and Women's Hospital in
Boston prior to joining the
Harvard Medical School Faculty.
About Immunic, Inc.
Immunic, Inc. (Nasdaq: IMUX) is a clinical-stage
biopharmaceutical company with a pipeline of selective oral
immunology therapies aimed at treating chronic inflammatory and
autoimmune diseases, including relapsing-remitting multiple
sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, and psoriasis.
Immunic is developing three small molecule products: its lead
development program, IMU-838, is a selective immune modulator that
inhibits the intracellular metabolism of activated immune cells by
blocking the enzyme DHODH and exhibits a host-based antiviral
effect; IMU-935 is an inverse agonist of RORγt; and IMU-856 targets
the restoration of the intestinal barrier function. Immunic
announced positive results from its phase 2 EMPhASIS trial of
IMU-838 in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis,
reporting achievement of both primary and key secondary endpoints
with high statistical significance. IMU-838 is also in phase 2
clinical development for ulcerative colitis and COVID-19, with an
additional phase 2 trial considered in Crohn's disease. An
investigator-sponsored proof-of-concept clinical trial for IMU-838
in primary sclerosing cholangitis is ongoing at the Mayo Clinic.
For further information, please visit: www.imux.com.
Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking
Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" that
involve substantial risks and uncertainties for purposes of the
safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform
Act of 1995. All statements, other than statements of historical
facts, included in this press release regarding strategy, future
operations, future financial position, future revenue, projected
expenses, prospects, plans and objectives of management are
forward-looking statements. Examples of such statements include,
but are not limited to, statements relating to Immunic's three
development programs and the targeted diseases; the potential for
IMU-838, IMU-935 and IMU-856 to safely and effectively target
diseases; the nature, strategy and focus of the company; the
development and commercial potential of any product candidates of
the company; expectations regarding the capitalization, resources
and ownership structure of the company; and the structure,
composition and potential contributions of the company's
scientific-medical advisory board. Immunic may not actually achieve
the plans, carry out the intentions or meet the expectations or
projections disclosed in the forward-looking statements and you
should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking
statements. Such statements are based on management's current
expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results
and performance could differ materially from those projected in the
forward-looking statements as a result of many factors, including,
without limitation, risks and uncertainties associated with the
ability to project future cash utilization and reserves needed for
contingent future liabilities and business operations, the
availability of sufficient resources to meet business objectives
and operational requirements, the fact that the results of earlier
studies and trials may not be predictive of future clinical trial
results, the protection and market exclusivity provided by
Immunic's intellectual property, risks related to the drug
development and the regulatory approval process and the impact of
competitive products and technological changes. A further list and
descriptions of these risks, uncertainties and other factors can be
found in the section captioned "Risk Factors," in the company's
Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, filed with the SEC on
March 16, 2020, the company's
Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2020, filed with the SEC on
November 6, 2020, and in the
company's subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. Copies of these filings are available online at
www.sec.gov or ir.imux.com/sec-filings. Any forward-looking
statement made in this release speaks only as of the date of this
release. Immunic disclaims any intent or obligation to update these
forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that
exist after the date on which they were made. Immunic expressly
disclaims all liability in respect to actions taken or not taken
based on any or all the contents of this press release.
Contact Information
Immunic, Inc.
Jessica
Breu
Head of Investor Relations and Communications
+49 89 2080 477 09
jessica.breu@imux.com
US IR Contact
Rx Communications Group
Melody Carey
+1 917 322 2571
immunic@rxir.com
US Media Contact
KOGS Communication
Edna Kaplan
+1 781 639 1910
kaplan@kogspr.com
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SOURCE Immunic, Inc.