Actym Therapeutics Appoints Chan Whiting as Chief Development Officer
BERKELEY, Calif., Nov. 11, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Actym Therapeutics, Inc. today announced the appointment of Chan Whiting, Ph.D. as Chief Development Officer. Chan brings over 20 years of drug development experience within the biotechnology industry. As CDO, Chan will play a key leadership role in advancing Actym's pipeline of first-in-class, systemically administered therapeutics that re-program the immunosuppressive microenvironment in solid tumors.
"Chan has significant experience advancing novel cancer therapies into clinical development," said Christopher Thanos, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Actym Therapeutics. "Her product development experience will be instrumental in guiding Actym as we prepare to become a clinical stage company over the coming months."
"Actym's novel S. Typhimurium-Attenuated Cancer Therapy (STACT) therapies have the unique ability to bring immunogenic payloads to the tumor microenvironment to promote potent and durable anti-tumor responses to tackle difficult to treat cancers. I look forward to joining the team and helping guide the development of this entirely novel class of immunotherapies."
Chan was previously Senior Vice President and Head of Research and Development at Tempest Therapeutics (NASDAQ:TPST). Before joining Tempest, Chan was Head of Immune Monitoring and Biomarker Development at Aduro Biotech. Prior to Aduro, she has held multiple scientific leadership positions at Ingenuity ((currently Qiagen, NYSE:QGEN) and Entelos, Inc. Chan received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology at UCLA and completed her postdoctoral studies at Tularik, Inc. (currently Amgen) and Stanford University.
About Actym
Actym Therapeutics, based in Berkeley, CA, is a privately-held biotechnology company focused on discovery and development of novel immuno-oncology therapies to treat cancer. The company has developed an attenuated, microbial-based, immunotherapeutic technology platform called STACT (S. Typhimurium-Attenuated Cancer Therapy). In preclinical studies, STACT specifically enriches in many types of solid tumors and not in healthy tissue. Once there, STACT delivers multiplexed immuno-modulatory payloads directly to tumor-resident immune cells. Many of these payload targets are of significant interest to the biopharmaceutical community but are intractable using conventional approaches due to systemic toxicities after intravenous dosing. Furthermore, STACT has been engineered to deliver payload combinations, which facilitates engagement of multiple biological pathways from a single therapy. In April of 2020, Actym raised $34 million in a Series A financing, co-led by Boehringer-Ingelheim Venture Fund and Panacea Venture Healthcare, with participation from Illumina Ventures, Korea Investment Partners, and JLO Ventures.
Media Contact:
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Seismic Media Relations
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Corporate Contact:
Sheriese Rush, MBA
Head of Operations, Actym Therapeutics, Inc.
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SOURCE Actym Therapeutics Inc.