August 28, 2023. T-CURX GmbH announces appointment of two industry leaders to its Board of Directors
Appointment of industry veterans, Dr. Hans-Peter Gerber, PhD, as Chairman and Dr. Bernd Eschgfäller, PhD, as independent Board member strengthens T-CURX’s Board to accelerate the commercialization of its proprietary CAR-T technologies and CAR-T pipeline programs
T-CURX GmbH (“T-CURX” or the “Company”), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of next-generation CAR-T cell therapies for cancer patients, today announces the appointments of Dr. Hans-Peter (HP) Gerber, PhD, as Chairman and of Dr. Bernd Eschgfäller, PhD, as an independent Board member. Both appointments are effective immediately. The addition of these two high-profile industry experts will significantly bolster the network and the commercial expertise of T-CURX’s Board of Directors, which also includes representatives of T-CURX’s investors and co-founders.
Dr. HP Gerber has a strong industry background with prior leadership and senior management positions at industry leading organizations including Genentech, Seattle Genetics (now Seagen) and Pfizer. More recently, he has been Chief Scientific Officer of a number of biotech companies, including MPM-backed Maverick Therapeutics, acquired by Takeda, and cell therapy company 3T Biosciences, where he was involved in the company’s $40 million Series A fundraising in 2022. HP also served as independent Board member of NBE-Therapeutics, where he was instrumental in the company’s successful acquisition by Boehringer Ingelheim.
Dr. Bernd Eschgfäller is an industry-experienced cell therapy expert who joins T-CURX from Novartis, where most recently he was Head of Customer Operations, Cell & Gene Therapy Europe. In his 20+ year career, he has held leadership positions across operations, commercial and development at Novartis. Bernd is an internationally-recognized leader in the field of CAR-T therapy development and the commercialization of CAR- T cells. He co-led the design of the commercial model for cell therapies at Novartis and was an instrumental member of the European Cell & Gene Leadership Team responsible for the launch and commercialization of Kymriah®, the first FDA-approved CAR-T cell product.
Dr. Ulf Grawunder, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of T-CURX, commented: “I am excited to welcome HP and Bernd to T-CURX’s Board of Directors. Both are extremely well-connected, high-caliber industry veterans with a wealth of commercial and technical expertise in oncology, specifically in the development of cellular therapies. The appointment of these two high-profile industry veterans underlines the significant potential of T-CURX and its groundbreaking innovations in CAR-T development.”
Dr. HP Gerber, Chairman of T-CURX, commented: “I am delighted to join T-CURX’s Board of Directors as its Chairman and work with the Company’s impressive team to leverage its CAR-T technologies and clinical pipeline. I am impressed with the quality of the science and technology that is being commercially translated at T-CURX by an outstanding, growing operational team built in a short period of time. I look forward to bringing the transformative innovations of T-CURX in the CAR-T cell space to many cancer patients in the future.”
Dr. Bernd Eschgfäller, Board Member, commented: “I am thrilled to join the Board of T-CURX, to leverage my expertise in CAR-T cell development and commercialization to accelerate the Company’s future development. I have followed the innovative work of Prof. Michael Hudecek, T-CURX’s co-founder, for many years, and I am excited to help T-CURX’s talented team to commercially translate their excellent science and technology for the benefit of patients in need of improved therapies.”
The appointments of Dr. Gerber and Dr. Eschgfäller follows the strengthening of T-CURX’s management team over the past year with the appointments of Dr. Ulf Grawunder as Chief Executive Officer in October 2022, Tom Loeser as Chief Financial Officer in December 2022, and Prof. Michael Hudecek as Chief Medical Officer and Dr. Karl Schumacher as Chief Clinical Officer in June 2023
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For further information:
T-CURX GmbH
Ulf Grawunder, Chief Executive Officer
E-Mail: ulf@t-curx.com
Phone: +49-(0)-931-250-99-712
Media enquiries e-mail: pr@t-curx.com
FTI Consulting (PR adviser to T-CURX)
Simon Conway, Natalie Garland-Collins, Alex Davis
E-Mail: T-CURX@fticonsulting.com
Phone: +44-(0)-20-3727-1000
About T-CURX
T-CURX GmbH (“T-CURX”) is a private biopharmaceutical company focused on identifying, developing and commercialising next generation CAR-T cell therapies in cancer indications of high medical need. Based in Germany, the Company´s proprietary CAR-T technologies were developed in the labs of co-founder Professor Michael Hudecek at Universitätsklinikum Würzburg and are centered around a novel Sleeping Beauty (“SB”) Transposon gene transfer technology, which is exclusively licensed to T-CURX.
T-CURX leverages several cutting-edge CAR-T engineering technologies, including virus-free transposon based genetic engineering and a highly flexible and modular CAR format. This provides unparalleled flexibility, efficacy, safety, but also scalability for developing CAR-T cells at significantly lower costs than conventional lentivirus-based CAR-T cell manufacturing. With an ambition to democratize transformative personalized CAR-T immunotherapies, T-CURX has a development pipeline of four CAR-T programmes. The Company’s first product is currently in Phase I clinical development whilst the second CAR-T programme, a novel target, is ready for a Clinical Trial Application (CTA).
For more information about T-CURX visit the website at www.t-curx.com