Revitope Oncology Appoints Steve Arkinstall, D.Phil., as Chief Executive Officer

News provided by

Jan 08, 2020, 07:00 ET

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Revitope Oncology, Inc., a cancer therapeutics company advancing a novel class of tumor-specific bispecific antibody therapies, today announced the appointment of Steve Arkinstall, D.Phil., as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Arkinstall brings more than 30 years of experience in biopharmaceutical research and development across multiple diseases areas and is a respected industry leader.

Most recently, Dr. Arkinstall was CEO of Elstar Therapeutics, a venture-backed biotechnology company developing multi-functional antibody-based therapeutics to treat cancer. He previously was Chief Scientific Officer at Kymab, an antibody therapeutics company founded in Cambridge, UK, prior to which he spent 16 years in progressively senior research leadership roles at EMD Serono, and associated entities in Europe and the United States.

"We are thrilled that a leader of Steve's caliber has chosen to join Revitope at this exciting time in the company's evolution," said Andrew Allen, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Revitope Oncology Board of Directors. "Under the skilled direction of CSO and acting-CEO Werner Meier, the company has advanced its core T-cell engaging antibody circuit (TEAC) technology to successful in vivo studies. We must now select our first development candidates and advance into IND enabling studies as a prelude to clinical trials. Steve is a superlative, and experienced executive ideally equipped to lead us through these critical phases."

Revitope's TEAC technology consists of tumor-specific antibody circuits designed to focus immune activation to the cancer cell surface while expanding the antigenic targeting space on solid tumors, avoiding healthy tissues and widening the therapeutic index in immune-oncology.

"A key challenge for immunotherapy for solid tumors in particular, has been the absence of antibody-accessible antigens on the surface of tumor cells which are suitably specific to the tumor," said Dr. Arkinstall. "Revitope's 'AND' gate technology, applied to antibody therapeutics, is an elegant and unique approach to the problem that offers a powerful solution. I am excited to be joining the team and look forward to driving this therapeutic approach forward to help cancer patients in a compelling new way. There is an abundance of targets to choose from and tremendous opportunity to leverage our technology through both in-house and partnered programs across cancer types."

About Revitope's T-Cell Engaging Antibody Circuit Technology (TEAC): Tumor-Specific Bispecific Antibodies
Because tumors typically do not express cell surface proteins unique to the tumor, conventional bispecific antibody therapeutics can generate unwanted and substantial "on-target, off-tumor" toxicity. Revitope's T-cell engaging antibody circuits are designed to permit specific recruitment and activation of T-cells exclusively by tumor cells. Though developed with traditional tumor targeting domains, TEAC therapies split the CD3 paratope (the T-cell recognition domain) into two stabilized halves, with one half on one molecule and the other half on the other molecule. This allows for true dual-antigen targeting to a unique tumor-specific address, or "AND" gate logic – two inputs enabling one precision targeted output. Only when the two molecules come together through binding their different tumor targets on the same tumor cell, can the two halves of the CD3 binding domain recombine and create a fully functional anti-CD3 domain (a TEAC) or tumor-specific bispecific antibody therapy that is both safe and effective.

About Revitope Oncology
Revitope Oncology is a privately funded cancer therapeutics company with a focus on tumor-specific bispecific antibody therapeutics. Based in Cambridge, MA, the company has conceived, engineered, patented and pre-clinically tested novel classes of bispecific antibody therapeutics designed to enable tumor-specific immunotherapy. For more information, please visit revitope.com or contact us at [email protected].

SOURCE Revitope Oncology, Inc.