ImmunoGen Founder to head Alfama drug development
Alfama, Inc. announced today the recruitment of Dr. Walter Blättler as the Company’s new Director of Pre-Clinical Development. Dr. Blättler is better known as the scientific founder of ImmunoGen, where he was Head of R&D and Clinical Development until 2007. He will be responsible for the development of Alfama’s entire portfolio of drug candidates towards the clinic, through internal efforts and external collaborations.
According to Nuno Arantes-Oliveira, Alfama's President and Chief Executive Officer, "Walter brings to Alfama a wealth of practical and proven drug development experience at precisely the right time in our history. Our CORM technology has now shown very promising efficacy and safety signals in models of a diverse range of diseases. We expect Walter to quickly translate these results into clinical trials and eventual products.
Stan Kugell, the company's Chairman of the Board, said, "Dr. Blättler has a well-deserved reputation for accurately recognizing potential in nascent therapeutics and for rapid and successful implementation of those ideas. We are delighted that among all of the projects competing for Dr. Blättler's attention, he chose Alfama.”
"When I left ImmunoGen, I set a goal of finding a project that I could whole heartedly believe in, one with some of the same characteristics that made ImmunoGen’s technology so successful - a novel platform, strong therapeutic potential, with that elusive sense of something that is going to work”, Dr. Blättler said. “Drug development always has risks, but to me this smells like it’s going to be a success.”
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