Sutro Biopharma Expands Senior Management Team with the Appointments of Vice President of Immunobiology and Vice President of Business Development

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Feb. 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Sutro Biopharma, Inc. (NASDAQ: STRO), a clinical-stage drug discovery, development and manufacturing company focused on the application of precise protein engineering and rational design to create next-generation oncology therapeutics, today announced the expansion of its senior management team with the appointments of Kristin Bedard, Ph.D., as Vice President of Immunobiology, and Brunilda Shtylla as Vice President of Business Development.

"Kristin brings a proven track record of advancing novel therapies into the clinic, with expertise in immuno-oncology and demonstrated scientific leadership. Brunilda has deep experience in the biopharma industry and brings strategic evaluation, analysis and negotiation skills to Sutro to support business development opportunities," said Bill Newell, Sutro's Chief Executive Officer. "These appointments provide an expanded breadth of key scientific and business expertise to drive the ongoing advancement of our clinical pipeline and partnerships utilizing our technology."

Dr. Bedard previously held leadership positions at Kineta, most recently as Chief Scientific Officer, Immuno-oncology and Senior Vice President, Discovery and formerly as Vice President of R&D and Head of Virology. She is the co-inventor of fifteen filed U.S. patent applications for novel classes of antivirals, adjuvants, immune agonists and their corresponding methods of identification. Dr. Bedard received her B.S. from Pennsylvania State University and earned her Ph.D. from University of California, Irvine.

Ms. Shtylla worked as an independent consultant since 2012, which included consulting for Genentech since 2013. Prior to this, she held numerous positions at Lifescan, a Johnson & Johnson company, including Associate Director of Partnerships and Product Director, U.S. Brand Marketing. Previously, Ms. Shtylla held roles in Business Development, Technology Transfer, Sales & Operations Planning, Investment Banking and Finance. She received her B.S. from Wayne State University, a M.S. in Mathematics from Youngstown State University and an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business.

About Sutro Biopharma
Sutro Biopharma, Inc., located in South San Francisco, is a clinical-stage drug discovery, development and manufacturing company. Using precise protein engineering and rational design, Sutro is advancing next-generation oncology therapeutics. 

Sutro's proprietary and integrated cell-free protein synthesis and site-specific conjugation platform, XpressCF™, led to the discovery of Sutro's first two internally-developed ADCs. One of these proprietary drug candidates is a folate receptor alpha (FolRα)-targeting ADC, currently being investigated in a Phase I clinical trial of patients with ovarian and endometrial cancers (STRO-002). Sutro's other proprietary drug candidate, (STRO-001) is a CD74-targeting ADC currently being investigated in a Phase I clinical trial of patients with advanced B-cell malignancies, including multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. STRO-001 was granted Orphan Drug Designation by the FDA for multiple myeloma in October 2018. A third program, CC-99712 (BCMA-targeting ADC), which is part of Sutro's collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb (formerly Celgene Corporation), is enrolling patients for its Phase I clinical trial of patients with multiple myeloma. Sutro's proprietary technology was responsible for the discovery and manufacturing of CC-99712, for which Bristol-Myers Squibb has worldwide development and commercialization rights. Sutro is entitled to development and regulatory milestone payments and tiered royalties from Bristol-Myers Squibb for this BCMA ADC.

Sutro is dedicated to transforming the lives of cancer patients by creating medicines with improved therapeutic profiles for areas of unmet need.

To date, Sutro has designed cytokine-based immuno-oncology therapies, ADCs, vaccines and bispecific antibodies primarily directed at clinically-validated targets for which the current standard of care is suboptimal.

Sutro's platform allows it to accelerate discovery and development of potential first-in-class and best-in-class molecules through rapid and systematic evaluation of protein structure-activity relationships to create optimized homogeneous product candidates.

In addition to developing its own oncology pipeline, Sutro is collaborating with select pharmaceutical and biotech companies to discover and develop novel, next-generation therapeutics. As the pace of clinical development accelerates, Sutro and its partners are developing therapeutics designed to more efficiently kill tumors without harming healthy cells.

Additional multimedia content from Sutro regarding STRO-001 and STRO-002 can be found here and here.

Follow Sutro on Twitter, @Sutrobio, and at www.sutrobio.com to learn more about our passion for changing the future of oncology.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, anticipated preclinical and clinical development activities, potential benefits of the company's product candidates and platform and potential market opportunities for the company's product candidates. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be deemed forward-looking statements. Although the company believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, the company cannot guarantee future events, results, actions, levels of activity, performance or achievements, and the timing and results of biotechnology development and potential regulatory approval is inherently uncertain. Forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause the company's actual activities or results to differ significantly from those expressed in any forward-looking statement, including risks and uncertainties related to the company's ability to advance its product candidates, the receipt and timing of potential regulatory designations, approvals and commercialization of product candidates, the Company's ability to maintain and recognize the benefits of certain designations received by product candidates, the timing and results of preclinical and clinical trials, the company's ability to fund development activities and achieve development goals, the company's ability to protect intellectual property, and the Company's commercial collaborations with third parties and other risks and uncertainties described under the heading "Risk Factors" in documents the company files from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release, and the company undertakes no obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof.

Investor Contacts

John Graziano
Solebury Trout
+1 646-378-2942
[email protected] 

Xuan Yang
Solebury Trout
+1 646-378-2975
[email protected] 

Media Contacts

David Schull
Russo Partners
(212) 845-4271
[email protected] 

Travis Kruse
Russo Partners
(212) 845-4272
[email protected]

SOURCE Sutro Biopharma

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