Algeta appoints Lars Abrahmsén as Senior Vice President, Protein Therapeutics

Algeta ASA (OSE: ALGETA), a company focused on the development of novel targeted cancer therapeutics, announces that Dr. Lars Abrahmsén has been appointed as Senior Vice President, Protein Therapeutics and will take up this new role on 15 November 2010.

Dr. Abrahmsén will be responsible for the development of Algeta’s Thorium platform and for building and overseeing the preclinical development of a pipeline of alpha-pharmaceutical candidates based on tumor-targeted thorium-227 conjugates. Algeta’s strategy for enhancing its alpha-pharmaceutical pipeline, beyond Alpharadin, is focused initially on the development of a robust proprietary position around its Thorium platform through both in-house development and selective in-licensing.

This program builds on the excellent progress made with Alpharadin, an alpha-pharmaceutical being developed in a phase III trial by Algeta and Bayer Schering Pharma for treating bone metastases arising from castration-resistant prostate cancer, which has demonstrated encouraging survival, efficacy and safety data in phase I and II.

Dr. Abrahmsén will join Algeta from Affibody AB, a Swedish company developing proprietary targeting molecules for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes, where he was Chief Scientific Officer since 2004. He has a wealth of experience in protein engineering, including monoclonal antibody production and conjugation, gained at Affibody, Genentech and at Pharmacia, where he established their phage display and antibody cloning capabilities. Over the past 20 years, working mostly in oncology, Dr. Abrahmsén has led several projects from discovery through preclinical development and into the clinic, developing an expert knowledge of technologies for conjugation of therapeutic payloads to monoclonal antibodies and targeting molecules.

Andrew Kay, Algeta’s President and CEO, said: “A key strategic objective of Algeta beyond the success to date with Alpharadin is to develop a new class of alpha-pharmaceuticals based on our Thorium platform and unlock the cancer-killing potential of targeted thorium-227 conjugates. Lars’ experience and expertise in developing targeted conjugates makes him the perfect choice to drive the formation and future development of our thorium platform and we are very excited to welcome him to the management team at Algeta.”

Lars Abrahmsén said: “I am delighted to be joining Algeta at this pivotal time in the development of the Company’s Thorium platform. There is a strong and growing interest in arming tumor-targeting molecules, such as antibodies, with active payloads to maximize the effectiveness of cancer therapy. Algeta’s approach using thorium-227 conjugated to tumor-targeting molecules offers great promise in this area. I look forward to joining the Company’s excellent team and working on this exciting and challenging project.”