WATERTOWN, Mass., Dec. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Acrivon Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical-stage oncology therapeutics company with proprietary, proteomics-based technologies driving a new era of precision-based medicine, today announced the establishment of its scientific advisory board.

We are delighted to have these distinguished thought leaders in oncology research and development join our scientific advisory board, said Peter Blume-Jensen, M.D., Ph.D., chief executive officer and founder of Acrivon. Combined, they represent expertise across Acrivons key pillars of excellence including phospho-proteomics, predictive protein biomarkers, and oncology precision medicine. The caliber of this group, in addition to the high-quality investors who participated in our recent oversubscribed $100 million Series B financing, is a testament to the promise of our unique precision medicine platform.

George Demetri, M.D., professor at Harvard Medical School, co-director of the Ludwig Center, and senior vice president at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, added, I am very enthusiastic to help advance the potential benefit to patients from Acrivons pioneering proteomics-based precision medicine platform. The future of precision medicine lies in the ability to identify the right patients with complex cancers who can derive the maximal benefit from specific targeted therapies and rational combinations. Acrivons platform enables a unique approach to patient selection with the promise to be broadly applicable beyond the limitations of current tumor genome tests. We hope this will allow identification of direct mechanistic matching between the drug action with the primary drivers of malignancyin an individual patients tumor to predict treatment benefit with far less empiricism than current standards of care.

Scientific Advisory Board Members George Demetri, M.D., F.A.C.P., F.A.S.C.O., F.A.A.C.R. Dr. Demetri is co-director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard and professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and serves as senior vice president for experimental therapeutics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). Dr. Demetri was instrumental in the development of Gleevec (imatinib) as the first effective therapy for gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) as a mutationally-driven solid tumor. His collaborative research efforts have contributed to worldwide regulatory approval of several other therapies, including sunitinib and regorafenib for GIST, as well as pazopanib, trabectedin, eribulin, and tazemetostat for other sarcomas. He is a member of the board of directors for Blueprint Medicines.

Dr. Demetri received his A.B. in Biochemistry at Harvard College and M.D. from Stanford Medical School. He completed his residency and chief residency at the University of Washington Hospitals in Seattle and his medical oncology fellowship at DFCI and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Demetri was the 2020 recipient of the David A. Karnofsky Memorial Award from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

Robert (Bob) Abraham, Ph.D. Dr. Abraham is executive vice president and head of cancer biology at Odyssey Therapeutics. Before that, he was most recently chief scientific officer at Vividion Therapeutics. Prior to Vividion, he was the senior vice president and world-wide head of the oncology R&D group at Pfizer. From 2005-2009, he was the head of oncology discovery research at Wyeth. During his tenure at Wyeth and Pfizer, Dr. Abraham contributed to the development of eight FDA-approved cancer drugs. Prior to joining industry, Dr. Abraham was a professor at the Sanford-Burnham-Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBPMDI) in La Jolla, CA, where he served as the director of the NCI-designated SBPMDI Cancer Research Center. Prior to SBPDMI, he was endowed chair in the Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at the Duke University Medical Center. Prior to Duke University, Dr. Abraham held dual professorships in the departments of Immunology and Pharmacology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He maintains adjunct professor appointments at U.C. San Diego (Department of Pharmacology), and at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Institute.

Dr. Abraham began his career as an academic investigator, with enduring interests in cancer biology and immunology. His major research interests included characterization and functional analysis of the mammalian Target of Rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway, cancer metabolism, cellular signaling and DNA damage responses. Dr. Abraham has authored over 225 scientific publications, and his published work has been cited over 48,000 times. Dr. Abraham received his B.S. in Biology from Bucknell University and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh, and he completed his postdoctoral training in Pharmacology and Immunology at the Mayo Clinic.

Timothy A. Yap, M.B.B.S., Ph.D., F.R.C.P. Dr. Yap is an associate professor in the departments for Investigational Cancer Therapeutics and Thoracic/Head and Neck Medical Oncology at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. He is also the medical director of the Institute for Applied Cancer Science, a drug discovery biopharmaceutical unit where drug discovery and clinical translation are seamlessly integrated. He is also an associate director of translational research at the Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy, an integrated research and clinical trials program. Previously, Dr. Yap was a consultant medical oncologist at The Royal Marsden Hospital in London, UK and National Institute for Health Research BRC clinician scientist at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK.

Dr. Yaps primary research focuses on development of targeted agents and their acceleration through biomarker-driven clinical trials. His main interests include targeting of the DNA damage response as well as the development of novel immunotherapeutics, and past and currenthe is and/or has been a principal investigator for multiple clinical trials evaluating novel strategies for targeting the DNA damage response in cancer. Dr. Yap obtained his B.Sc. degree in Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Imperial College London, UK, and subsequently went on to attain his medical degree from Imperial College London, UK. He has a Ph.D. in Molecular Pharmacology from the Division of Cancer Therapeutics at the Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK.

David Berman, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Berman is a professor and chair of the department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. He is board certified in Anatomic Pathology and practices urologic surgical pathology at Kingston Health Sciences Centre while also running a biomarker discovery laboratory focused on urologic cancers. Dr. Berman earned his M.D. and Ph.D. (Genetics and Development) degrees from the University of Texas, Southwestern Medical Center. He completed residency training and a postdoctoral research fellowship at Johns Hopkins where he established his independent research laboratory, which moved to Canada in 2012. The Berman laboratory focuses on basic, translational, and clinical aspects of prostate and bladder cancer. His research has helped identify bladder cancer stem cells and druggable targets in embryonic signaling pathways, and it has helped improve surgical pathology practice.

Dr. Berman was director of the Queens Cancer Research Institute from 2015-2021 and has served on research advisory committees for the Canadian Cancer Society (ACOR), the Canadian Cancer Trials Group, and Bladder Cancer Canada. He currently leads a translational research effort for the Canadian Bladder Cancer Research Network.

Jesper Olsen, Ph.D. Dr. Olsen is an academic co-founder and head of phosphoproteomics at Acrivon Therapeutics, Inc. He is a professor in quantitative proteomics at the University of Copenhagen and vice director of the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Protein Research. Dr. Olsen is a pioneer in mass spectrometry based phosphoproteomics and its applications to decipher cell-signaling networks at a systems-wide scale, and his research interest is developing and applying phosphoproteomics technologies for comprehensive kinase drug profilings with clinical actionability. Dr. Olsen is the most cited phosphoproteomics expert world-wide and among top 0.1% in protein sciences.

Dr. Olsen received his M.Sc. in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Southern Denmark and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the same place under the supervision of Prof. Matthias Mann. Dr. Olsen completed his post-doctoral training in proteomics and cell signaling at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Munich. He is based in Copenhagen since 2009, where he joined the newly established Center for Protein Research, initially as group leader and since 2014 as vice director.

About Acrivon Acrivon is a clinical stage oncology company leveraging its unique, proprietary phosphoproteomics technology called Acrivon Precision Predictive Proteomics, or AP3, in development of its pipeline of oncology drugs. The AP3 platform enables the creation of drug-specific proprietary OncoSignature companion diagnostics that can be used to identify patients most likely to benefit from Acrivons medicines. Through its highly specific patient selection, the company seeks to accelerate clinical development and increase the probability of successful treatment outcome for patients. The companys pipeline includes the clinically advanced lead program, ACR-368 (also known as prexasertib), a targeted oncology asset in-licensed from Lilly which has demonstrated evidence of durable responses, in solid cancers in Phase 2 trials. Acrivon is also developing additional pipeline programs targeting critical nodes in DNA Damage Response (DDR) and cell cycle regulation. Please visit the companys website at https://acrivon.com for more information.

Acrivon Contacts: Alexandra Santos asantos@wheelhouselsa.com

Aljanae Reynolds areynolds@wheelhouselsa.com

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Acrivon Therapeutics Announces its Scientific Advisory Board with Renowned Oncology Thought Leaders - The Bakersfield Californian