Senior pharma executives joined Cellestia Biotech as investors and co-founders

Cellestia Biotech AG is a privately owned biopharmaceutical company with strategic focus on the development of anti-cancer drugs that modulate the NOTCH signaling pathway for treatment of NOTCH dependent leukemia, lymphoma and solid tumors. Effective October 28th 2015, a team of senior pharma executives joined the company as investors and co-founders to strengthen and complete the management and development capabilities.  

Dr. Michael Bauer has been appointed CEO of Cellestia Biotech AG. He is an experienced drug development executive and has worked in senior management positions in Pharma and Biotech companies, most recently with Novartis Oncology and as Head of Clinical Development at Polyphor. Dr. Dirk Weber joined as CMO and is a medical oncologist with broad experience in oncology drug development and product launching from senior global assignments at Takeda, Novartis Oncology and Merck-Serono. Dr. Richard Peck has over 2 decades of experience in regulatory affairs from senior assignments with Finox, Arpida, Bering and Roche. Roger Meier, CEO at Clarena AG, Basel, has been involved in developing numerous start-up and growth companies and is member of the Board of Directors with Piqur Therapeutics Ltd. and Strekin AG.

With the extension of the management team, Cellestia Biotech AG opens a development office in the Technology Park Basel, Switzerland while Research will be continued at EPFL laboratories, Lausanne, Switzerland.

“Joining the Cellestia Biotech AG founder team as co-founders is a major step advancing the company to the next level. It is intended to soon initiate the preclinical development of the lead development candidate CB-103. I am excited about this opportunity, which is based on excellent scientific research and very promising in vivo data of CB-103 in various cancer indications. With our experienced research and development team, we have all the ingredients to advance the company successfully” said CEO Michael Bauer.

Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Prof. Freddy Radtke added: “It is a privilege and unique opportunity to work with this new, dynamic and experienced team to bring what started as a basic research program on developing novel state of the art NOTCH inhibitors to the clinics”

Cellestia Biotech AG was founded in 2014 as a spin-off from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, EPFL by Prof. Dr. Freddy Radtke, an internationally recognized key opinion leader in the field of NOTCH pathway research together with Dr. Rajwinder Lehal, CSO of Cellestia Biotech AG. The lead development compound is CB-103, a novel, first-in-class oral pan-NOTCH inhibitor indicated for treatment of patients with NOTCH-dependent leukemia, lymphoma and solid tumors. Cellestia Biotech AG holds a worldwide exclusive license on the intellectual property rights (IPR) for CB-103 and related series of close analogues, for development and commercialization.

(SK)