News
Akamis Bio Strengthens Leadership Team with Key Executive Appointments
Company Names Dr. Oliver Rosen Chief Medical Officer and Peter Kosa Chief Business Officer; Samantha Bailey-Bucktrout Promoted to Senior Vice President, Head of Research
CAMBRIDGE, MA (USA) and OXFORD (UK) – July 6, 2023 – Akamis Bio, a clinical-stage oncology company using a proprietary Tumor-Specific Immuno-Gene Therapy (T-SIGn®) platform to deliver novel immunotherapeutic proteins, biomolecules and transgene combinations to treat solid tumors, today announced the appointment of Oliver Rosen, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Peter Kosa, Ph.D. as Chief Business Officer (CBO), and Samantha Bailey-Bucktrout, Ph.D. as Senior Vice President, Head of Research. Drs. Rosen and Kosa will be based in the Company’s Cambridge, MA office and Dr. Bailey-Bucktrout will continue to lead Research from the Oxford, UK site.
“We are thrilled to welcome these experienced leaders to our team at this important point in the Company’s evolution as we work to deliver on the potential of our platform and expand our pipeline of therapeutic candidates for patients with intractable solid tumors,” said Howard Davis, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Akamis Bio. “As CMO, Oliver’s decades of experience in oncology drug development will be critical as we advance our lead program, NG-350A, toward clinical proof-of-concept studies. Peter’s track record of leading corporate strategy and business development will be invaluable as we seek to leverage our platform with collaborators, and we are excited to have Samantha drive our discovery and preclinical efforts building upon her contributions to date which have been instrumental in establishing our pipeline of tumor gene therapies. With several anticipated clinical data readouts and new strategic partnerships on the horizon, we believe we are now well-positioned to accelerate our internal pipeline progress while continuing to explore the potential combination of our T-SIGn therapeutics with current and emerging immuno-oncology approaches to potentially address a broad range of cancers.”
NG-350A is an intravenously delivered T-SIGn therapeutic candidate capable of driving intratumoral expression of a secreted CD40 agonist monoclonal antibody. Currently being studied in two Phase 1 clinical trials, NG-350A may potentially be used as both a monotherapy and in combination with other immuno-oncology agents.
Dr. Oliver Rosen, M.D.: As CMO, Dr. Rosen will be responsible for driving the company’s overall clinical development and regulatory strategy. An experienced drug developer, he most recently served as President and CMO at DynamiCure and was previously CMO of SQZ Biotechnologies and Deciphera Pharmaceuticals. At SQZ, his work led to achieving proof of concept in the clinic for an autologous PBMC-based antigen presenting cell platform and a red blood cell-based cancer vaccine. At Deciphera, he led clinical development efforts resulting in the approval of QINLOCK™ (repritinib) for advanced gastrointestinal tumors. Before joining Deciphera, Dr. Rosen held senior clinical development and medical affairs roles at Takeda Oncology and Genentech. Dr. Rosen received his medical training in oncology and hematology at the University Hospital Charité in Berlin, participated in a post-doctoral program in molecular and cellular biology at the University of Hamburg, and holds an M.D. from the University of Cologne, Germany.
Peter Kosa, Ph.D.: Dr. Kosa will serve as CBO, leading corporate strategy, business development, and partnerships. Dr. Kosa was formerly the Managing Director of the Myeloma Investment Fund, a non-profit venture capital fund created by the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation to support research and development for new therapeutics. Previously, he served as the Senior Director of Business Development at bluebird bio and was Director of Oncology Strategic Alliances at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, where he had global responsibility for search and evaluation of oncology partnerships. Dr. Kosa has also held leadership positions at XOMA, Bayer Healthcare, and Connecticut Innovations. He earned his B.A. in biochemistry from Swarthmore College, a Ph.D. in molecular biophysics from Yale University, and was a Damon Runyan Cancer Research Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School. He also earned an MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT.
Samantha Bailey-Bucktrout, Ph.D.: Dr. Bailey-Bucktrout joined Akamis Bio in 2022 as Vice President of Research Strategy before her recent promotion to Senior Vice President and Head of Research, where she will lead all discovery and preclinical programs. She joined Akamis Bio from the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy in San Francisco where she was Senior Director of Research and Development. She previously served as Associate Director at Pfizer’s Cancer Immunotherapy Research Unit. Dr. Bailey-Bucktrout earned a B.S. degree at the University of Aberdeen and a Ph.D. in immunology from the University of Edinburgh. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco and a postdoctoral scholar at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University.
About T-SIGn®
Akamis Bio’s Tumor-Specific Immuno-Gene (T-SIGn®) therapeutics are chimeric group B adenoviral vector-based, tumor gene therapies which are capable of homing specifically to primary and metastatic solid tumors following intravenous delivery. Once at the tumor site, T-SIGn therapeutics can drive intratumoral expression of multiple immunologically active biomolecules and therapeutic proteins encoded by the vector to remodel the tumor microenvironment and trigger robust antitumor immune responses. T-SIGn therapeutics have potential for use in the treatment of solid tumors as monotherapy, as well as in combination with other immuno-oncology agents (e.g., checkpoint inhibitors, antibody drug conjugates, bispecific T-cell engagers, and cell therapies) to enable and/or enhance the efficacy of those modalities in the solid tumor setting. Akamis Bio has an extensive and growing body of clinical experience with T-SIGn therapeutics with more than 200 patients treated across both the monotherapy setting, as well as in combination with checkpoint inhibitors. Across clinical studies, T-SIGn therapeutics have demonstrated a consistent safety and tolerability profile, as well as promising preliminary evidence of clinical activity.
About Akamis Bio
Akamis Bio is a clinical-stage oncology company using a proprietary Tumor-Specific Immuno-Gene Therapy (T-SIGn®) platform to deliver novel immunotherapeutic proteins, biomolecules and transgene combinations to treat solid tumors. The company is developing a portfolio of solid tumor-targeted T-SIGn therapeutics which aim to enable a patient’s own immune system to recognize, attack, and clear their cancer. Akamis Bio has a growing pipeline of T-SIGn therapeutics anchored by its lead clinical-stage program, NG-350A (an immuno-stimulatory tumor gene therapy driving intratumoral expression of a CD40 agonist monoclonal antibody) being investigated in ongoing Phase 1 clinical studies in patients with metastatic or advanced epithelial tumors. In addition to internal pipeline development efforts, Akamis Bio has a number of T-SIGn platform-focused collaborations with leaders in the immuno-oncology field including BMS, Merck, and the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI). To learn more, please visit www.akamisbio.com.
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