Chief Business Officer appointed at Accession Therapeutics as company prepares for clinical trials
Chief Business Officer appointed at Accession Therapeutics as immune-oncology company prepares for clinical trials in 2024 Dr Stephanie Bewick joins with extensive partnering and business development experience
Oxford, UK, July 19 2023 – Accession Therapeutics, which is developing novel immuno-oncology therapeutics combining high specificity and potency with the ability to counter tumour diversity, has recently expanded its management team with the appointment of experienced executive Dr Stephanie Bewick to the new role of Chief Business Officer. Dr Bewick, who has been involved in multiple licensing deals and fund-raising transactions, joins the company as its lead programme Trocept-01 (ATTR-01) progresses through IND-enabling studies. In another new role, Dr Jez Gerry has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer from his position as Head of Preclinical Development.
Dr Bewick has worked across a range of international pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Summit Therapeutics and Mayne Pharma covering a variety of therapeutic areas and in- and out-licensing deals. She joins from Destiny Pharma plc where she recently led the exclusive US collaboration and co-development deal for its Phase 3-ready anti-infective asset with Sebela Pharmaceuticals and played a pivotal role in fund-raising.
Accession Therapeutics’ Trocept approach uses detargeted and retargeted adenovirus making immunotherapy more specific to cancer cells and in turn more potent than existing technologies, with minimal toxicity. Its lead programme’s drug payload is targeted to cancer cells via integrin binding and is expected to enter the clinic in the first half of 2024 for solid tumours such as those of the head and neck, pancreatic, ovarian and breast.
Dr Stephanie Bewick, CBO of Accession Therapeutics, said, ‘Founded by a pioneer in immune-oncology, Accession Therapeutics has a novel approach with the potential to make a step-change in the treatment of cancer, and I’m delighted to join the company at this exciting stage of its development. With our strategy to partner at the IND or early clinical stage, together with our developing pipeline and the flexibility of the platform, we’re looking forward to developing valuable collaborations and partnerships in the coming months.
Bent Jakobsen, PhD FMedSci, CEO of Accession Therapeutics, said, ‘As we develop into a clinical stage company, I’m pleased to welcome Stephanie to the management team, where her partnering and financing experience will be very valuable to us. Jez’s promotion is also a marker of Accession Therapeutics’ maturation, and I look forward to working with both of them in their new roles.’
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About Accession Therapeutics
Accession Therapeutics is developing novel immune-oncology therapeutics combining high specificity and potency with the ability to counter tumour diversity. Led by T cell receptor therapy pioneer Bent Jakobsen, PhD FMedSci, the company is leveraging its Trocept platform technology to develop a portfolio of next generation products to the IND/early clinical trial stage.
By engineering viruses specifically directed to cancer cells and carrying a transgene coding for an antitumour or immune activator drug, Trocept products are expected to be highly specific, broad in action so as to kill all cancer cell variants present in a tumour, and potent in activating the full immune system arsenal. The effects of the antitumour drug and immune system activation caused by cancer cell lysis after viral infection combine synergistically to give this broad and potent response as illustrated in this animation here. Accession Therapeutics believes that this makes it the first company to be able to develop therapeutics with a discriminatory viral point of entry into cancer cells. With the virus carrying a transgene coding for one or more agents (such as antitumour or immune activator drugs or prodrugs), this engineered specificity enables the company to target some of the hardest to treat and most widespread forms of the disease, such as breast, cervical, colorectal, gastric, head and neck, lung, oral, ovarian and pancreatic cancer.
Dr Jakobsen is a founder of Adaptimmune and Immunocore which are both now listed on NASDAQ. Accession Therapeutics is backed by iGlobe Partners, Primavera Venture Partners, Birk Venture and other international biotech investors. It is based at ARC Oxford in the UK.