ISA Pharmaceuticals Strengthens Management Team
July 08, 2013
Company hires Jan Fagerberg as Chief Medical Officer and Jens Hennecke as Chief Business Officer
Ronald Loggers becomes Acting Chief Executive Officer and Gerard Platenburg Chief Operating Officer
Leiden, The Netherlands, July 8, 2013 – ISA Pharmaceuticals B.V., a clinical-stage immunotherapy company focusing on rationally designed therapeutic vaccines against cancer and persistent viral infections, today announced that it has appointed Dr. Jan Fagerberg, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer and Dr. Jens Hennecke, Ph.D., as Chief Business Officer and Advisor. Furthermore, Ronald Loggers, M.Sc., MBA, will step down from the Board of Directors and assume the role of Acting Chief Executive Officer, while Gerard Platenburg will become Chief Operating Officer.
Dr. Jan Fagerberg (51) is a board-certified clinical oncologist with more than 20 years of experience in clinical research and the development of oncology drugs. He joins ISA from Amgen where he was Vice President Global Development and Managing Director of Amgen Research (Munich) GmbH. During his career, Dr. Fagerberg has held senior executive positions at Amgen, Micromet, TopoTarget, and F. Hoffmann-La Roche. His responsibilities have included the global clinical development of blinatumomab (AMG 103), belinostat (PXD101), capecitabine (Xeloda), and clinical development programs of bevacizumab (Avastin) outside the U.S.. Dr. Fagerberg has extensive international regulatory experience, and was successful in obtaining 11 FDA and EMA approvals for Xeloda and Avastin. At Micromet, he also initiated the clinical development of several compounds in collaboration with global pharma companies. Jan Fagerberg received his M.D. (1988) and Ph.D. (1995) for work in clinically applied passive and active immunotherapy in cancer from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Sweden).
Dr. Jens Hennecke (45) has a strong track record in business development, corporate development and licensing. He brings extensive experience in the negotiation and closing of corporate alliances. Prior to joining ISA and building his own business development advisory franchise, he was Senior Vice President Business Development at Micromet, Inc., where he managed the company's business and corporate development, intellectual property and information technology departments. He also played a key role in establishing partnerships with major pharma companies, and in Micromet's acquisition by Amgen in 2012. Prior to joining Micromet in 2001, Dr. Hennecke was a post-doctoral researcher at Harvard University. He holds a B.Sc. in biology from the University of Göttingen, Germany, and a Ph.D. from the ETH Zurich, Switzerland.
Before becoming Acting Chief Executive Officer, Ronald Loggers (45) had been on the Supervisory Board of ISA since 2009. He is currently also Managing Director at Multifund B.V., a family-owned investment company. Prior to that, he worked seven years for HAL Investments B.V., five years for McKinsey & Company and one year for Fokker Aircraft B.V. He brings extensive managerial, investment and financing experience. Ronald obtained an MBA from INSEAD (France) and an M.Sc. in Chemical Engineering from Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands).
Gerard Platenburg (48) joined ISA Pharmaceuticals in an executive role in 2009 and helped to mature ISA’s organization into its current form. He has over 20 years of experience as an executive in the biotech industry. He gained experience in several innovative biotech companies, amongst others Pharming and Prosensa, which he co-founded and grew into a clinical-stage company. Gerard holds a degree as a chemist/molecular biologist from the University of Leiden, The Netherlands.
"We are very pleased that Jan and Jens are joining us to complement our team," said Ronald Loggers. "Their extensive clinical, regulatory and business development experience will be tremendous assets, as we are preparing several clinical trials of our SLP® synthetic long peptide vaccines and are also expanding our business activities."
"I’m very excited to be joining ISA. Its rationally designed therapeutic vaccines and novel SLP® and AMPLIVANT™ technologies look very promising and have generated convincing data," added Jan Fagerberg. “I’m looking forward to building on ISA’s impressive portfolio of product candidates by advancing new therapies to help cancer patients.”
"ISA’s product candidates and vaccine platform are very impressive and have tremendous potential. There is significant market demand for improved therapeutic vaccines, which are capable of efficiently activating the patient´s own immune system against cancer and infectious diseases," said Jens Hennecke. "Recent developments in immunotherapy clearly support the path that ISA is taking, and I’m delighted to have been given the opportunity to head up the company´s business activities."
The management team will consist of Ronald Loggers (Acting Chief Executive Officer), Gerard Platenburg (Chief Operating Officer), Prof. Kees Melief (Chief Scientific Officer), Jan Fagerberg (Chief Medical Officer) and Jens Hennecke (Chief Business Officer).
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About ISA Pharmaceuticals
ISA Pharmaceuticals B.V. is an immunotherapy company developing rationally designed, fully synthetic therapeutic vaccines against cancer and persistent viral infections. The company has built a proprietary vaccine platform based on the Synthetic Long Peptide (SLP®) and AMPLIVANTTM technologies, which permit the generation of safe and effective vaccines with a known mechanism of action. SLP® vaccines are broadly applicable to multiple targets and ideally suited as monotherapy or as essential components in combination with conventional cancer treatments.
Two SLP® vaccines are currently in clinical development: ISA101, targeting human papillomavirus (HPV)-induced diseases, and ISA102, targeting p53-overexpressing tumors. Clinical proof-of-concept has been established with ISA101 in vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia (VIN), a pre-cancerous disease caused by HPV.
The company was founded in 2004 by Aglaia Oncology Fund and is based in Leiden, The Netherlands. For more information, please visit www.isa-pharma.com
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