- The newly formed Scientific Advisory Board chaired by Dr. Marco Taglietti will provide technical and strategic guidance to support AUROBAC’s R&D strategy.
Lyon (France), June 20, 2024
AUROBAC THERAPEUTICS, a biopharmaceutical company founded by Boehringer Ingelheim, bioMérieux and Evotec, today announced the creation of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and the appointment of its members.
Comprised of distinguished experts in preclinical and clinical drug development, diagnostics, and infectious diseases, the SAB will provide scientific and medical expertise as well as strategic guidance to support AUROBAC’s R&D strategy and to help advance its first products to clinical trials. The SAB duties will also include program execution considerations in the framework of innovation, clinical and market dynamics.
“We are thrilled to welcome such a qualified and experienced group of experts to our Scientific Advisory Board”, said Florence Séjourné, CEO of AUROBAC THERAPEUTICS. “Their collective expertise and insights will be invaluable as we navigate the complexities of developing innovative products targeting bacterial infections, antimicrobial resistance and their consequences in acute hospital settings. The creation of the SAB is a significant milestone for AUROBAC, underscoring our commitment to scientific excellence and innovation.”
The newly formed SAB will be chaired by Dr. Marco Taglietti, who is also an Independent Member of AUROBAC’s Board, and consists of:
- Sujata M. Bhavnani, PharmD, M.S., is a distinguished pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamics expert for antimicrobial agents. Her work has supported decisions for dose selection and interpretive criteria for the in vitro susceptibility testing for numerous new drug applications. She is the Executive Vice-President of Translational Medicine for ICPD (Institute for Clinical Pharmacodynamics). She received her Pharm.D. from the Albany College of Pharmacy, completed a two-year post doctorial fellowship in infectious diseases and pharmacokinetics at Millard Fillmore Hospital, and her M.S. in biometry from the University at Buffalo.
- Mark Miller, MD, is a renowned medical clinician, microbiologist and clinical researcher with expertise in infectious disease and epidemiology. Until recently, he was Chief Medical Officer, Executive Vice-President and was on the Executive Management Committee at bioMérieux for 11 years (2012 – 2024). Prior to bioMérieux, he was Head of Infectious Diseases, Chief of Clinical Microbiology, and Chair of Infection Prevention and Control at the Jewish General Hospital (Montreal, Canada) for over 25 years, until 2012. He received his MD with further specialization in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology and his M.Sc. in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) where he was appointed a Full Professor of Medicine in 2012.
- Manu Shankar-Hari, MD, Ph.D., M.Sc., is a clinician scientist with an outstanding expertise in translational research and immunology of sepsis. Currently, he holds the Personal Chair of Translational Critical Care Medicine at the Institute for Regeneration and Repair (University of Edinburgh). He leads a globally unique precision medicine program for critically ill adults to enable targeted immunomodulation (The TRAITS programme). For additional details of Prof Shankar-Hari’s research, please see academic webpage.
- Ruben Tommasi, Ph.D., has extensive expertise in preclinical development with almost 30 years’ of industry and biotech experience. He is currently Chief Scientific Officer of Dunad Therapeutics since 2022. Prior to Dunad, he was a founding leader and Chief Scientific Officer at Entasis Therapeutics (2015 – 2022). He also spent 4 years at AstraZeneca as Executive Director, Chemistry, of the Infection Innovative Medicines unit, after having been at Novartis for 17 years where he led several medicinal chemistry efforts, most recently the Infectious Disease Therapy unit. He received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the State University of New York at Albany.
- Richard G. Wunderink, MD, is a highly-experienced clinician scientist, active in pulmonary infections and sepsis. He is a professor of medicine in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and formerly medical director of the MICU, Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He co-chaired the 2007 IDSA (Infectious Diseases Society of America) / ATS (American Thoracic Society) Consensus Guidelines Committee on the management of community-acquired pneumonia. He was a member of previous ATS/IDSA guidelines committee on HAP/VAP and the ERS/ESCIM/ESCMID/ALAT International Guidelines for the Management of HAP/VAP and the recently published ERS/ESCIM/ESCMID/ALAT guidelines for management of Severe CAP. He received his MD from the Indiana University School of Medicine.
“I am honoured to take on the role of Chairman of AUROBAC's SAB and look forward to working together with these esteemed scientists to support the development of products addressing antimicrobial resistance, one of the biggest public health threats of our time”, said Dr. Marco Taglietti, Chairman of the SAB.
Leveraging the invaluable expertise of the SAB, the AUROBAC team is well prepared to advance its product pipeline and provide effective treatments for patients with severe bacterial infections.
About AUROBAC THERAPEUTICS:
AUROBAC THERAPEUTICS is a biopharmaceutical company founded in 2022 by three highly renowned life sciences innovation companies, Boehringer Ingelheim, Evotec and bioMérieux. Dedicated to addressing high unmet medical needs associated with infections in acute hospital settings, amidst the growing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) epidemic, AUROBAC is advancing a robust pipeline. This includes ATX101, a potential first-in-class therapeutic targeting the loss of vascular integrity in septic shock, developed in collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim, and ATX401, an engineered lysin with potent activity against multiple clinically relevant Gram-negative bacteria. Additionally, the company’s unique drug discovery engine aims to identify new precision antimicrobials, as showcased through a collaboration with GENERARE Bioscience.
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