Dutch Amarna Therapeutics Announces the Appointment of Steen Klysner as Chief Executive Officer

    "I am very pleased to welcomeSteen Klysneras our new CEO. Steen brings an extensive background as a biotech CEO to Swedish ExpreS 2 ion Biotech Holding AB & the Danish ExpreS 2 ion Biotechnologies ApS, preceded by an impressive track record in execution and value creation within the biotech industry. His leadership experience makes Steen an ideal candidate to lead Amarna into its next stage of growth and development,"   said  Thomas Eldered, Chairman of Amarna's Supervisory...

Netherlands, 03/09/2020 (informazione.news - comunicati stampa - scienza e tecnologia)

 

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Steen Klysner comes to Amarna with over 30 years of experience in the life sciences industry. Prior to joining Amarna, Dr. Klysner served as CEO of the Swedish ExpreS ion Biotech Holding AB in parallel with the Danish ExpreS ion Biotechnologies ApS. Earlier, he was Senior Vice President (SVP) of preclinical R&D and SVP of Quality of Allergopharma, the Allergy Business Unit of Merck KGaA. He also served as CEO of Nordic Vaccine in Copenhagen , focusing on the development of non-invasive vaccination based on an integrated nanoparticle adjuvant and delivery platform. Prior to that he has also held positions at Pharmexa, Novo Nordisk and ALK.

Dr. Klysner holds a Ph.D. from Technical University of Denmark combined with an Industrial Scientist Research Degree from the Danish "Academy of Technical Sciences", a M.Sc. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Copenhagen and a B.Sc. in sports from the University of Copenhagen .

Finally, Dr. Klysner is author/co-author of numerous patents and scientific publications in (inter)-national peer-reviewed medical journals.

Steen Klysner , CEO
E-mail: Steen.Klysner@amarnatherapeutics.com

Léon Melens
Tel: +31 6 538 16 427
E-mail: lmelens@lifespring.nl

Today gene therapy enables the development of a next wave of treatments, with potential to not only treat, but also to cure a number of major diseases. Key to the success of gene therapy is the efficient delivery of therapeutic genes into target cells, which is an ability that naturally evolved in viruses, rendering them ideally suited for gene delivery.

The Simian virus 40 (SV40) strictly replicates in its natural host, macaque monkeys. The virus cannot replicate in humans and doesn't elicit an immune response, which makes it ideal for developing effective gene therapies. However, the clinical use of SV40 vectors has been hampered by production and safety issues. Amarna has solved this, by developing a novel proprietary SuperVero™ production cell line and the SVec™ gene delivery platform.

Importantly, SVec™ can be used to efficiently induce immune tolerance to self-antigens driving degenerative, inflammatory and autoimmune human diseases. Amarna aims to develop SVec-based "reverse" vaccines for major indications such as neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases (NDPs), atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ACD), obesity, diabetes mellitus (DM), arthritis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Amarna Therapeutics is a privately held Biotech company founded in 2008. Its head office is located in Leiden ( The Netherlands ), and its research facility in Seville ( Spain ). The company has developed a proprietary SuperVero™ cell line and SVec™ gene delivery platform for the development of safe and efficient immunotherapies for major indications within the degenerative, inflammatory and autoimmune disease areas.

In October 2019 , Amarna secured €10 million in new equity to progress its SVec platform towards clinical studies. The financing round was led by Flerie Invest AB, a Swedish investment company, together with existing shareholders and an innovation credit from the "Netherlands Enterprise Agency" (RVO.nl).

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