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Batu Biologics
Batu Biologics, a preclinical biopharmaceutical company focusing on developing and allogeneic cell therapies in the area of immune modulation, has appointed Alan Lewis to the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Lewis has more than 37 years’ experience in life sciences, having spent 15 at Wyeth-Ayerst, where he was VP of Research, leading translational research efforts in diabetes, central nervous system, cardiovascular, inflammatory, allergy and bone metabolism diseases. He later became the CEO of Signal Pharmaceuticals, a company focusing on small-molecule drug discovery and development, which was acquired by Celgene in 2010.
The scientist previously worked the Batu’s Chairman, Thomas Ichim, when the latter was President of Medistem. “It is my honour to continue working with Dr Lewis. In our previous work at Medistem Inc, the recruitment of Dr Lewis was a pivotal event that led to the $26m acquisition of our company,” said Ichim.
Lewis said his work at Batu will involve immunologically targeting the “Achilles’ heel” of the tumour by inducing an immune response to kill the blood vessels that feed it. Earlier this month, Batu Biologics announced efforts to raise $100,000 (€73,500) via crowd-funding to complete the company’s preclinical research before filing of an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA.