25-year pharma specialist is new CEO at Maxion Therapeutics
Co-founder Dr John McCafferty transitions from CEO to CTO having co-founded Maxion, raised $16 million in initial funding and established its cutting-edge KnotBody® technology. The move will be triggered on March 1.
Maxion is developing antibody-based drugs for previously untreatable ion channel and GPCR-driven diseases and was shortlisted in last September’s Business Weekly Awards.
Prior to joining Maxion, the new CEO served as Chief Scientific Officer of Affimed and held executive leadership roles as Executive Vice-President of R & D at Cambridge company Kymab – acquired by Sanofi – and Chief Development Officer at MorphoSys as well as senior leadership roles at Genentech.
During his 25-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, he established a successful track record of advancing therapeutics from research into early and late-stage clinical developments and in building valuable portfolios of drug candidates and pharma partnerships.
Arndt has extensive experience in discovery, project and portfolio management, preclinical and clinical development, FDA negotiations and regulatory filings as well as business development.
Dr Schottelius said: “Maxion’s truly revolutionary technology has the unique opportunity to deliver first-in-class and best-in-class protein therapeutics to treat ion channel and GPCR-driven diseases.”
Dr McCafferty added: “I am proud of what we have achieved so far at Maxion and pleased to welcome Arndt to the team to guide the transition of the company into the next stage of our development.
“We have a unique KnotBody technology which addresses the key challenges in ion channel and GPCR antibody drug discovery and our lead programme is rapidly advancing towards preclinical development.
“With Arndt’s appointment, I am excited to be dedicating more time to further advance the underlying KnotBody technology and enabling new opportunities.
“The team is keen to work closely with Arndt and benefit from his extensive experience in antibody drug development to ensure we reach our ambitious goals.”