MELBOURNE, Australia, 15th November 2016: AdAlta Limited (ASX: 1AD), the biotechnology company advancing its lead i-body candidate towards clinical development today announced the appointment of San Diego-based Dr Robert Peach as Non-Executive Director effective from 15th November 2016.
Dr Peach was co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Receptos Inc., a company developing a promising drug for patients with relapsing multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel disease, and other autoimmune diseases. Receptos listed on NASDAQ until it was acquired by Celgene Corporation in 2015 for US$7.8bn in cash. Dr Peach has deep experience in research and drug development, having held senior executive and scientific positions in biotechnology companies such as Apoptos Inc., Biogen Idec, Idec Pharmaceuticals Corporation, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Dr Peach received a BSc and MSc (1st class honours) from the University of Canterbury and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Otago, New Zealand.
AdAlta Chairman Paul MacLeman said, “AdAlta is fortunate to have attracted someone with Robert’s skills at monetarising science to join the Board. His drug development and international industry experience are aligned with AdAlta’s goals.
About AdAlta LImited
AdAlta Limited (ASX:1AD) is an Australian based drug development company headquartered in Melbourne. The Company is focused on using its proprietary technology platform to generate i-bodies, a new class of protein therapeutics, with applications as therapeutic drugs to treat disease.
AdAlta is developing its lead i-body candidate, AD-114, for the treatment of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) and other human fibrotic diseases, for which current therapies are sub-optimal and there is a high-unmet medical need. AD-114 has strong pre-clinical results for IPF, demonstrating both anti-fibrotic and anti-inflammatory activity in human lung tissue and indicating greater efficacy than existing approved IPF drugs.
The i-body is a human analogue of the antigen binding domain of the shark antibody, which combines the advantages of monoclonal antibodies (high target specificity and affinity) with the beneficial stability features of small molecules. In addition to stability, the i-body has a long binding loop that is a feature of shark antibodies not present in either human or next generation antibodies. This feature enables the i-body to recognise and bind to a diverse range of different therapeutically-relevant drug targets, including those that are difficult/intractable to access by current antibody therapies. These include clinically important targets such as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ion channels.
The Company also plans to continue further drug discovery and development directed towards other drug targets and diseases with its i-body technology platform.