Achilles Therapeutics Appoints Julie O’Neill to Board of Directors and Markwin Velders, Ph.D. joins Scientific Advisory Boa...
03 May 2021 - 10:00PM
Achilles Therapeutics plc (NASDAQ: ACHL), a clinical-stage
biopharmaceutical company developing precision T cell therapies to
treat solid tumors, today announces the appointment of Julie
O’Neill as a Non-Executive Director to the Board and Markwin
Velders, Ph.D. to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Both
individuals come to Achilles with strong track records of
experience in cell therapy and cell therapy manufacturing.
Ms. O’Neill is a business professional with more
than two decades of executive experience in senior leadership
roles. She was previously Executive Vice President, Global
Operations at Alexion Pharmaceuticals. where she led the Global
Operations business including product development, manufacturing,
quality, supply chain and global real estate functions. Prior to
joining Alexion, she was Vice President of Operations at Gilead
Sciences.
Ms. O’Neill serves as an Independent Director on
the boards of ICON, DBV Technologies and Hookipa Pharma. She is
also on the Board of Ireland’s National Institute for Bioprocessing
Research & Training (NIBRT) and serves as the Chairperson of
the Strategic Advisory Board at the School of Pharmacy, Trinity
College Dublin.
“Achilles’ precision T cell therapies have the
potential to significantly benefit patients with melanoma,
non-small cell lung cancer, as well as other solid tumor disease.
As the Company gets closer to breaking ground on expanded
manufacturing capacity for clinical and commercial use, operations,
manufacturing and quality control are growing in importance,”
commented Julie O’Neill. “I am looking forward to
joining the Achilles team and supporting them as they move along
the clinical path. I am excited to be able to contribute at such an
important stage in the company’s development.”
The Company has also expanded its Scientific
Advisory Board with the addition of Dr. Velders. He is the former
VP, Operations and Managing Director at Kite Pharma EU. Before
joining Kite, he was CSO at Dutch AM-Pharma, Business Unit Manager
at TNO Biosciences, and CEO at SomantiX. After mediating the sale
of the start-up T Cell Factory to Kite, he joined Kite Pharma to
establish the company’s EU headquarters in Amsterdam, helping to
advance clinical development. Most recently, he was involved in the
establishment of Kite’s CAR-T commercial manufacturing site in
Hoofddorp, The Netherlands.
“Given the importance of manufacturing in cell
therapy, we are delighted to welcome Julie to our Board and Markwin
to our Scientific Advisory Board,” said Iraj Ali, Chief
Executive Officer at Achilles. “As we scale up our
fully-closed and automated end-to-end manufacturing process for our
expanding clinical work and eventual commercial production, their
combined operations and manufacturing management expertise are a
welcome complement to the capabilities of our current Board and
team.”
Achilles has also announced that Rogier
Rooswinkel, Ph.D. of Forbion has indicated that he will be
resigning from the Board of Directors effective immediately prior
to the date of the planned annual general meeting to be held on
June 28, 2021.
The members of the Achilles Therapeutics Board
of Directors are now:
Edwin Moses, Chairman Iraj Ali, Chief Executive
OfficerCarsten Boess, Non-Executive DirectorDerek DiRocco,
Non-Executive DirectorMichael F. Giordano, Non-Executive
DirectorJulie O’Neill, Non-Executive DirectorRogier Rooswinkel,
Non-Executive Director (until June 28, 2021)
About Achilles TherapeuticsAchilles is a
clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing precision T
cell therapies targeting clonal neoantigens: protein markers unique
to the individual that are expressed on the surface of every cancer
cell. The Company has two ongoing Phase I/IIa trials, the CHIRON
trial in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)
and the THETIS trial in patients with recurrent or metastatic
melanoma. Achilles uses DNA sequencing data from each patient,
together with its proprietary PELEUS™ bioinformatics platform, to
identify clonal neoantigens specific to that patient, and then
develop precision T cell-based product candidates specifically
targeting those clonal neoantigens.
Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release
contains express or implied forward-looking statements that are
based on our management's belief and assumptions and on information
currently available to our management. Although we believe that the
expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are
reasonable, these statements relate to future events or our future
operational or financial performance, and involve known and unknown
risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual
results, performance or achievements to be materially different
from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or
implied by these forward-looking statements. The forward-looking
statements in this press release represent our views as of the date
of this press release. We anticipate that subsequent events and
developments will cause our views to change. However, while we may
elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in
the future, we have no current intention of doing so except to the
extent required by applicable law. You should therefore not rely on
these forward-looking statements as representing our views as of
any date subsequent to the date of this press release.
Further information:
Lee M. Stern – VP, IR & External
Communications+1 (332)
373-2634l.stern@achillestx.com
Consilium Strategic CommunicationsMary-Jane
Elliott, Sukaina Virji, Melissa Gardiner+44 (0) 203 709
5000achillestx@consilium-comms.com
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