SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Deciduous Therapeutics, an early stage immune therapy start-up, announced today the appointment of an independent board member, additional Scientific Advisory Board members, and company advisors.
Mr. Robert Forrester joins Deciduous as an Independent Board Member. He will be joining Robin Mansukhani, Deciduous' Co-founder and CEO, Anil Bhushan, Scientific Founder of Deciduous, and Dylan Morris, Venture Partner at CRV. Mr. Forrester is the Co-Founder and CXO of EQRx, and has over 20 years of experience as the CEO, COO or CFO of both private and public life science companies including Verastem Oncology (VSTM), Forma Therapeutics (FMTX), CombinatoRx (CRXX, now ZLCS) and Coley (COLY, acquired by Pfizer).
"I am delighted to join the board of Deciduous Therapeutics because of the team and the novel science in harnessing the immune system to treat a number of age-related diseases with significant unmet need," commented Mr. Forrester. "The potential impact of Deciduous' approach for diseases of aging is analogous to the disruption that we have witnessed with immunotherapies in oncology over the last decade."
"We are pleased to add someone of Robert's caliber to our Board of Directors. Over the last several decades, Robert has been an instrumental member in piloting companies working on disease altering medicines," commented Mr. Mansukhani.
Deciduous' new SAB members include Dr. Max Krummel and Dr. Eric Verdin. Dr. Krummel brings extensive experience in both immune biology (co-founder of the ImmunoX program at UCSF) and in discovering immunotherapy treatments (founder of Pionyr Immunotherapeutic). "I am excited by the methods by which Deciduous is set up to use immunotherapy to modulate detrimental cellular senescence. It is an exciting journey ahead," said Krummel.
Dr. Verdin serves as the CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and is also an advisor to several institutional and large pharma venture funds. "Deciduous is bringing a new vision to the therapeutic arsenal against senescent cells. By targeting and enhancing the activity of the immune cells that eliminate senescent cells, they will increase our ability to eliminate senescent cells and thereby to combat the chronic diseases of aging," commented Dr. Verdin.
Deciduous is advised by Martin Babler, Karen Boezi, and Dr. Regis Kelly. Mr. Babler is currently the CEO of Esker Therapeutics, and former CEO of Principia Biopharma (acq. by Sanofi). Ms. Boezi was formerly the CEO of Redwood Bioscience (acq. by Catalent). "Deciduous has made exciting progress around therapeutically harnessing endogenous immune biology to ablate pathological senescent cells," said Boezi. "I am delighted to advise on the company's future growth and path towards improving the lives of patients."
Dr. Kelly is the Director of one of the four California Institutes for Science and Innovation, QB3, and former executive vice chancellor at UCSF. Dr Kelly commented, "Ever since Deciduous' inception, I have been keenly excited by this discovery which shows us how our own bodies normally fight off the aging process. Moreover, the ability to use a natural aging-defense mechanism that the company uniquely harnesses has great potential for clinical translation. Watching them grow and attract talented new members to their team is very exciting."
About Deciduous Therapeutics
Deciduous Therapeutics is an early stage, venture-backed biotech company based in San Francisco. The company is developing multiple activation approaches to clearing senescent cells via novel immunotherapies. The underlying discovery of immune mediated senolysis was recently published in the journal Med. Deciduous is currently translating this discovery towards the clinic, while expanding the pipeline across additional indications.
Media Contact:
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