Acrivon Therapeutics Appoints Jean-Marie Cuillerot, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer

WATERTOWN, Mass., Jan. 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Acrivon Therapeutics, Inc. (“Acrivon” or “Acrivon Therapeutics”) (Nasdaq: ACRV), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing precision oncology medicines that it matches to patients whose tumors are predicted to be sensitive to each specific medicine by utilizing its proprietary proteomics-based patient responder identification platform, Acrivon Predictive Precision Proteomics or AP3, today announced the appointment of Jean-Marie Cuillerot, M.D., as chief medical officer.

“Jean-Marie has over twenty years of successful experience in oncology drug development, and we are delighted to have him join Acrivon,” said Peter Blume-Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer, president, and founder of Acrivon Therapeutics. “During his impressive career, he has effectively executed on advancing drugs from early development through regulatory approval, at both pharma and biotech companies. Jean-Marie’s track record of successful global development of novel oncology therapeutics is well-suited to lead the advancement of our pipeline of pioneering drugs and support our continued discovery activities, enabled by our AP3 platform.”

Dr. Cuillerot was previously the chief medical officer at Dragonfly Therapeutics where he established and led a clinical team advancing multiple potential first-in-class assets. Prior to Dragonfly, Dr. Cuillerot was the chief medical officer of Agenus, where he led development activities for five investigational therapies. At EMD Serono, an affiliate of Merck Serono, Dr. Cuillerot served as the global head of clinical development in immuno-oncology (IO) and as the vice president of clinical immunotherapy/IO. He oversaw the company's IO portfolio which included two checkpoint inhibitors and two immuno-cytokines. Notably, Dr. Cuillerot advanced avelumab, the first drug approved to treat Merkel cell carcinoma and second-line bladder cancer, from pre-IND through global submissions in record time, an achievement that earned him the Merck CEO Award. From 2007 to 2012, he was at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he served as the medical lead for the life cycle management of ipilimumab, an anti-CTLA-4 antibody and the world's first immune checkpoint therapy for cancer. Here he designed and led Phase 2 and Phase 3 studies across multiple indications and supported regulatory filings in the United States and Europe. Earlier in his career, Dr. Cuillerot also served in clinical development at Novartis, as a clinical research physician at the Centre d’Immunologie Pierre Fabre, and as an assistant professor at the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg. Dr. Cuillerot received a B.S. in biochemistry, an M.Sc. in cellular and molecular biology and an M.D. at the University Louis Pasteur (Strasbourg, France).

Dr. Cuillerot added, “I have dedicated my career to helping cancer patients through the development of novel therapies based on the latest scientific insights into the biology of the disease. I believe the unique, proprietary precision medicine approach at Acrivon has enormous potential to help more patients by directly measuring the disease-driving, dysregulated proteins in tumors and matching that with our drugs. This represents a paradigm change for patients and for oncology drug development. I am excited to join Peter and a world-class team of scientists and clinicians on these efforts.”

Other Personnel Updates

The company announced today that Erick Gamelin, M.D., Ph.D., has transitioned to the role of Chief Development Officer. In this role, Dr. Gamelin will leverage his more than 30 years of broad translational and clinical expertise to continue to develop and support Acrivon’s overall research and development strategy, working closely with the preclinical and clinical development teams to prioritize and advance new pipeline programs and external opportunities.

Also today, the company announced the appointments of Karl Hsu, M.D., as senior vice president of clinical development and Rajshree Kandadai, M.A., as vice president of business development, as well as the promotions of Mary-Alice Miller, J.D., to chief legal officer and Monica Phadnis to senior vice president of clinical operations.

Dr. Hsu is a seasoned clinical development executive and joins Acrivon most recently from Zai Laboratory where he was senior vice president of clinical research and early development responsible for the early development oncology, clinical pharmacology, and translational medicine groups. Ms. Kandadai joins Acrivon with broad experience in leading business development and licensing, corporate strategy, and alliance management, including as senior director corporate development and strategy at Aurigene Oncology.

About Acrivon Therapeutics
Acrivon is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing precision oncology medicines that it matches to patients whose tumors are predicted to be sensitive to each specific medicine by utilizing Acrivon’s proprietary proteomics-based patient responder identification platform, Acrivon Predictive Precision Proteomics, or AP3. The AP3 platform is engineered to measure compound-specific effects on the entire tumor cell protein signaling network and drug-induced resistance mechanisms in an unbiased manner. These distinctive capabilities enable AP3’s direct application for drug design optimization for monotherapy activity, the identification of rational drug combinations, and the creation of drug-specific proprietary OncoSignature companion diagnostics that are used to identify the patients most likely to benefit from Acrivon’s drug candidates. Acrivon is currently advancing its lead candidate, ACR-368, a selective small molecule inhibitor targeting CHK1 and CHK2 in a potentially registrational Phase 2 trial across multiple tumor types. The company has received Fast Track designation from the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, for the investigation of ACR-368 as monotherapy based on OncoSignature-predicted sensitivity in patients with platinum-resistant ovarian or endometrial cancer. Acrivon’s ACR-368 OncoSignature test, which has not yet obtained regulatory approval, has been extensively evaluated in preclinical studies, including in two separate, blinded, prospectively-designed studies on pretreatment tumor biopsies collected from past third-party Phase 2 trials in patients with ovarian cancer treated with ACR-368. The FDA has granted Breakthrough Device designation for the ACR-368 OncoSignature assay for the identification of ovarian cancer patients who may benefit from ACR-368 treatment. In addition to ACR-368, Acrivon is also leveraging its proprietary AP3 precision medicine platform for developing its internally-discovered preclinical stage pipeline programs, consisting of its development candidate, ACR-2316, a selective, dual WEE1/PKMYT1 inhibitor, and additional programs targeting these two critical nodes in the DNA Damage Response, or DDR, pathways.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes certain disclosures that contain “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding our future results of operations or financial condition, business strategy and plans and objectives of management for future operations, are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “contemplate,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,” “target,” “will,” or “would” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions. Forward-looking statements are based on Acrivon’s current expectations and are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Factors that could cause actual results to differ include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties that are described more fully in the section titled “Risk Factors” in our reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of this date, and Acrivon undertakes no duty to update such information except as required under applicable law.

Investor and Media Contacts:
Adam D. Levy, Ph.D., M.B.A.
alevy@acrivon.com

Alexandra Santos
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