Date: 2018-07-02
Type of information: Nomination
Compound: chief business officer
Company: Xyphos Biosciences (USA - CA)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Type agreement: nomination
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Details:
- • On July 2, 2018, Xyphos, a privately held biotechnology company developing novel cell-based therapies, announced that Thorsten Melcher has joined the company as chief business officer. Reporting to James Knighton, the company’s chief executive officer, Dr. Melcher will lead all business development and financing activities, including implementing strategic collaboration and licensing arrangements for Xyphos’ ACCEL™ platform and its derived cell therapy products. Previously Dr. Melcher served as Senior Director of Business Development for Calico, a company focused on aging. Prior to Calico, he was Senior Director of New Ventures at Johnson & Johnson Innovation (JJI), where he concentrated on partnering for Janssen Oncology and Janssen Neuroscience and led the completion of approximately 20 transactions. Before joining JJI, he was at Varian Medical Systems leading its biomedical programs as Vice President of Varian Biosynergy. Earlier in his career, he held a number of research and business development positions of increasing scope and responsibility and was co-founder of AGY Therapeutics and EnVivo Pharmaceuticals. Born in Germany, Dr. Melcher earned his masters of science degree (M.Sc.) from the University of Hannover, and a Ph.D. degree from the Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH) in Heidelberg. Subsequently, he conducted postdoctoral research at ZMBH and the University of California, San Francisco.
- Xyphos has developed a novel and modular Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR)-T technology called ACCEL™ (Advanced Cellular Control through Engineered Ligands). ACCEL is used to create engineered immune cells and to deliver specifically to those cells various classes of controlling and modulating agents, including antibodies, cytokines and checkpoint inhibitors. ACCEL produces a single engineered CAR cell, the convertibleCAR™ cell; a family of bispecific antibody-derived targeting molecules, called MicAbodies; and a family of molecules, called MicAdaptors, that allow functional modulation of convertibleCAR cells. While MicAbodies control specificity and the activity level of convertibleCAR™ cells towards tumor cells and non-malignant cells, MicAdaptors modulate the functionality of convertibleCAR™ cells by specifically delivering cytokine or checkpoint blockade signals. Xyphos’ lead product, a CD20-targeted convertibleCAR-T cell enhanced with a cytokine MicAdaptor, is in preclinical development and is scheduled to be tested in a first-in-human clinical study in early 2020.
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