arGEN-X appoints Dr Debbie Allen as Senior Director Business Development

arGEN-X BV, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of human antibodies using its proprietary SIMPLE Antibody™ platform, today announced the appointment of Dr Debbie Allen as Senior Director Business Development. Dr Allen brings to arGEN-X more than 12 years of corporate and business development experience with small and large biotech companies.

Dr Allen established her Business Development career at Cambridge Antibody Technology (now Medimmune), where she had management responsibility for technology, intellectual property and product out-licensing, corporate equity, co-development and cross-license agreements. She negotiated the 1999 agreement with Human Genome Sciences which led to the discovery of the monoclonal antibody BENLYSTA® (belimumab) which has successfully completed Phase 3 development in systemic lupus.

Since 2003, Dr Allen has been an independent consultant to around 25 emerging biotech companies, providing strategic management and business development support.

In her new role, Dr Allen will focus on helping execute arGEN-X’ business strategy, which is centred on forging of strategic alliances with biotech and pharma companies. Target companies are those looking to access the arGEN-X’ SIMPLE Antibody™ platform to improve significantly their human antibody discovery & development efforts. The SIMPLE Antibody™ platform is able to do this by generating highly diversified panels of entirely novel human antibodies that allows the selection of the most-promising candidates to advance through development. arGEN-X also intends to seek partners to participate in the development of the Company’s own rapidly developing pipeline of novel antibody programs.

In welcoming Dr Allen to arGEN-X, Tim Van Hauwermeiren, CEO, said: “Debbie brings highly complementary experience, leadership and drive to arGEN-X. Working closely with our existing management team, we are confident that Debbie’s experience will help us achieve our stated goal of becoming a transforming force in the human antibody space based on the unique advantages offered by our proprietary SIMPLE Antibody™ platform.”

Dr Allen commented: “arGEN-X is a very ambitious new company with a truly innovative approach to the rapid discovery of novel antibody drug leads. I am very excited to be joining the Company at this important stage in its development and look forward to delivering the key business development milestones that will allow us to become a clear leader in the human antibody space and a successful, biopharmaceutical company.”

arGEN-X’s SIMPLE Antibody™ platform yields monoclonal antibodies that combine an unparalleled functional diversity against human disease targets with best in class human germline homology. The technology has the potential to rapidly create large numbers of novel product candidates against new therapeutic targets and against targets where standard antibody approaches fail to generate an optimal lead diversity.

Dr Allen joins arGEN-X’ strong, international leadership team, which includes: Tim Van Hauwermeiren (B) who has led the company since July 2008, securing €12.5MM series A financing round in the midst of a highly challenging financial climate; Prof. Dr. Hans de Haard (NL), a world-leading antibody drug discovery expert; Dr Torsten Dreier (G), a drug developer with an unrivalled track record of developing antibody therapeutics; and Dr Michael Saunders (UK), a professional in target scouting and program management.