MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - March 13, 2017) - Amunix Operating Inc. (Amunix), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of novel biologics, announced today that Dr. Herbert (Bob) Pinedo has joined as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board.
Prof. Dr. Herbert (Bob) Pinedo is an internationally recognized oncologist based in the Netherlands and Curacao. Dr. Pinedo is Professor-Emeritus of Medical Oncology at the Free University of Amsterdam (VUMC), currently serving as a consultant to the Board of VUMC. Since 2008, he has been a visiting Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the Technical University of Twente and since 2009, he has chaired the Prevention Foundation of Curaçao. From 1979 to 2005, he served as Chief of the VUMC Department of Oncology and from 2003 to 2005, was president and chair of the board of VU Cancer Center Amsterdam. From 2004 to 2009, he served as vice-chair of the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development.
Over his career, he has served on boards and committees of many European and American organizations, including 25 years on the Board of the Dutch Cancer Society. He founded the New Drug Development Office - Oncology, which coordinated early clinical trials with anti-cancer agents, internationally. He was the inaugural President of the Federation of European Cancer Societies and is a past President of the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO). He has served on numerous committees of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and on scientific advisory boards of cancer institutes as well as companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb (Europe). He is a consultant to Spectrum Pharmaceuticals and a past director and consultant of OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Dr. Pinedo is a prolific physician-scientist with over 700 peer-reviewed full publications and more than 120 book chapters, invited papers and proceedings with a focus on translating leading-edge scientific concepts into early clinical trials and their development through approval.
Over the course of his career, Dr. Pinedo has made seminal contributions to the study of cancer biology and treatment-related mechanisms of drug action and resistance that he helped to develop and are in medical practice in the world today. During his Presidency of ESMO, he helped establish the leading medical journal, Annals of Oncology, and he is also one of the founding members of the widely recognized journal, The Oncologist. He has also served on editorial boards for numerous scientific journals, including Clinical Cancer Research and the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
In 2006, in his honor, The Society of Translational Oncology established the Pinedo Prize, awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences for excellence and commitment to advancing cancer patient care and outcomes. Dr. Pinedo has received many international awards including the prestigious Josef Steiner Award (1995), the Spinoza Award (1997) and ASCO David Karnofsky Award (2014). He is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been decorated by Her Royal Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands with the prestigious Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion and Commander in the Order of Orange-Nassau. He is still practicing medical oncology today.
Volker Schellenberger, PhD, CEO of Amunix stated: "We very much welcome Dr. Pinedo to Amunix. His exceptional experience and career achievements in the treatment of cancer patients will serve to enhance the strategic guidance provided by our newly formed Scientific Advisory Board as we continue the development and expansion of our ProTIA immuno-oncology platform."
About Amunix and XTEN®: Amunix is the inventor of the XTEN technology platform -- novel, hydrophilic, unstructured, biodegradable protein chains. Since 2006, Amunix has been engaged in the discovery and development of therapeutics with improved in vivo half-lives based on the XTEN concept. XTEN can be recombinantly fused or chemically conjugated to peptides, proteins and other pharmaceuticals, thereby enabling enhanced drug payload delivery. In addition to the advantages of reduced dosing frequency, XTENylation has been found to stabilize drug concentrations in serum, resulting in increased efficacy as well as reduced side effects. Two genetically fused XTENylated products have been tested clinically. VRS-859 (exenatide-XTEN) has been tested through Phase I in the treatment of diabetes and VRS-317 (human growth hormone-XTEN) is currently in Phase III testing. Successful long term treatment (>3 years) of children with growth hormone-XTEN has been reported. Amunix is working with additional partners, including Eli Lilly, Biogen/Bioverativ, Roche, Genentech, Janssen, Naia and other undisclosed companies in a wide range of therapeutic areas.
About ProTIA: Amunix' ProTIA (Protease Triggered Immune Activator) platform are novel recombinant constructs that are designed for treatment of solid malignancies. XTENylation provides long half-life and, more importantly, converts ProTIA molecules into essentially inactive precursors that are selectively activated at the tumor site by tumor-associated proteases to link surface antigens of malignant cells to a CD3-binding domain of a T cell. Amunix' lead ProTIA molecule (AMX-168), targets multiple solid tumors such as ovarian, colorectal, gastric, and lung cancers. An IND filing for AMX-168 is expected late 2017.
Contact: Volker Schellenberger, Ph.D. President and CEO Tel: 650-889-5095 vschellenberger@amunix.com
