Meditope Biosciences Appoints Prominent Scientific Advisory Board

PASADENA, Calif., Jan. 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Meditope Biosciences, Inc., a biotechnology company developing antibody-based products, today announced the appointment of inaugural members of its newly-formed scientific advisory board.  The board will leverage its extensive experience in protein engineering to advise the company to help advance its proprietary monoclonal antibody (mAb) technology platform for the development of novel antibody-drug conjugates.

"We are very proud to appoint these prominent members of science and industry, as we work to quickly and efficiently apply our exciting new technology to a spectrum of drug development programs," said Stephanie Hsieh, Meditope's president and chief executive officer.  "Recently, we have made significant progress to establish our technology platform and initiate key studies that will inform our cancer drug development programs.  The strategic input from these experienced advisors will be key as we seek out meaningful development partnerships and maximize opportunities to deploy our best in class antibody-drug conjugate technology."

Members of the scientific advisory board include:

• Peter B. Dervan, PhD, Bren Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology.  He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and a Foreign Member of both the French and German Academies of Science.  Dr. Dervan was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2006.  He has served on numerous Scientific Advisory Boards, including that of Gilead Sciences, Inc.  Dr. Dervan is recognized for creating a new field of bioorganic chemistry directed towards understanding the chemical principles for the sequence specific recognition of DNA.
• Iqbal S. Grewal, PhD, DSc, FRCPath, Chief Scientific Officer and a director of ImmunGene, Inc.  Prior to joining ImmunGene, Dr. Grewal served as Vice President of Preclinical Therapeutics at Seattle Genetics, where he managed preclinical translational research functions for development of monoclonal antibodies and antibody-drug conjugates as therapeutics in the areas of oncology and autoimmunity.  His career also includes discovery research and preclinical development of biologics at Genentech, as well as various research positions at Yale University School of Medicine and the University of California, Los Angeles.  He is a fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, London and member of several distinguished societies. He has extensive experience in the discovery and development of innovative protein-based biotherapeutics in many disease areas.
• Arthur D. Riggs, PhD, Director Emeritus and current Chair of the Diabetes Research Department of the Beckman Research Institute at City of Hope. Dr. Riggs was the founding dean of the City of Hope's graduate school.  He is also a Member of the National Academy of Sciences. Previously, Dr. Riggs worked with Genentech to express the first artificial genes, for somatostatin and insulin, in bacteria.  His work helped form the bedrock of the modern biotechnology industry, enabling the large-scale manufacture of protein drugs, like synthetic human insulin, and developing recombinant DNA techniques that are the basis for creating therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.
• John C. Williams, PhD, Co-founder of Meditope Biosciences and Associate Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Beckman Research Institute of the City of Hope, where he also serves as a member of the Developmental Cancer Therapeutics Program as well as Co-Director of the Drug Discovery and Structural Biology Core.  Dr. Williams' research centers on the application of structural and biophysical methods to understand the biological role of multivalency and energy additivity on multicomponent, macromolecular complexes and how to manipulate these properties to develop novel, highly specific antagonists.   Recently, his lab discovered the meditope binding site while investigating alternative masking agents for cetuximab. This discovery led to the founding of Meditope Biosciences.

About Meditope Biosciences, Inc. 
Meditope Biosciences is a biotechnology company developing best-in-class antibody-based cancer products.  Discovered at City of Hope, a National Cancer Institute designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, Meditope's technology is capable of turning any mAb into a proprietary, site-specific "Lego-like" system that is able to attach and detach drugs to antibodies without the need for chemical conjugation.  The result is a memAb (meditope-enabled mAb) product, which is anticipated to be significantly more effective and offer multiple manufacturing advantages compared to existing antibody-drug conjugate technologies.  The technology has the potential to advance the antibody market by producing an array of new therapeutic and diagnostic products.  More information regarding the company can be found by visiting www.meditope.com.

SOURCE Meditope Biosciences, Inc.