CELLMED assigns new CEO to push clinical program

As of November 23rd 2011 CELLMED Research GmbH assigned Karl Krista, MD, MBA as CEO. Karl Krista has broad managerial experience in the life science industry and has already led the development of another cancer vaccine for the treatment of ovarian cancer.

“We are very excited to have Karl Krista on board as CEO” said Wolfgang Huber, MD, MBA, president of CELLMED’s board of directors. “We believe that his medical background, his managerial expertise from his years at McKinsey and his unique track record in cancer vaccines and ovarian cancer treatment are an excellent fit with CELLMED and will help to lead CELLMED through a successful clinical program”. CELLMED is half way through its first clinical phase I/IIa study in ovarian cancer and is currently developing a clinical phase IIb study program with projected enrolment by the end of 2012. To implement its clinical plans, CELLMED has recently started raising € 17.8 million for a series B financing round.

“It is a great pleasure for me to be able to join CELLMED as CEO”, commented Karl Krista. “CELLMED has turned into a highly professional and dynamic company over the past years and has a distinct focus on the clinical positioning of its unique dendritic cell vaccine to treat patients suffering from ovarian cancer, an unmet clinical need.” CELLMED has achieved two major milestones within the past years: the start of its clinical program with its lead product PROCURE® in 2010 as well as the health authority approval of its in-house GMP processing unit for autologous cellular vaccines. PROCURE® is a dendritic cell vaccine, which is expected to stimulate the body’s own defense mechanism by eliciting both a short-term reaction against cancer cells and a long-term memory effect against future metastasis. “Our double loading concept for the comprehensive stimulation of a patient’s own immune cells is unique worldwide and patent protected”, says Wolfgang Huber.