AdAlta expands its scientific advisory team


AdAlta Pty Ltd is pleased to announce that Dr John Westwick has joined the AdAlta scientific advisory team.

Dr John Westwick has extensive experience as a Drug Discoverer in the Pharmaceutical Industry and as a Professor of Pharmacology. With over 14 years at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, John was responsible for the build-up and leadership of all aspects of drug discovery and early development from target validation to the completion of clinical proof of concept studies in the Respiratory Area, which included severe asthma, COPD, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary arterial hypertension, and pulmonary fibrosis. During his period of leadership at Novartis Respiratory, John was responsible for five global launches including Xolair, Podhaler, Onbrez, Seebri, and Ultibro. In addition he had 13 positive clinical proof of concept studies in Respiratory, which include a number of compounds and monoclonal antibodies which are now in phase III.

Sam Cobb, Managing Director of AdAlta commented, “We are excited to further expand our scientific advisory Board and work with John. John has extensive experience in drug discovery and development and AdAlta is extremely fortunate to have his input alongside both Dr David McGibney and Dr Brian Richardson in the development of its programs and progression of the i-bodies to the clinic.”

AdAlta has developed a platform that allows the production of an i-body – a single domain, long loop protein. The i-body, as a next generation biologic, combines the advantages of conventional monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) with some of the well known features of small molecule drugs, with significantly improved efficacy and reduced toxicity.

Recent animal studies have demonstrated positive in vivo data and AdAlta is developing an improved therapy for the treatment of fibrosis, prevalent in 45-50% of all diseases. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the lead AdAlta clinical target, will have an estimated market size of $1bn in the US and Europe alone by 2017. AdAlta is currently raising funding to progress its lead to the clinic.