Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc. announced that R. Andrew Andy Ramelmeier, Ph.D., has joined Adverum as the company's chief technology officer. Dr. Ramelmeier will serve as a member of Adverums executive committee and will lead Adverums technology and operations organization, including process development and assay development for Adverums investigational gene therapy ixoberogene soroparvovec (Ixo-vec). Ixo-vec is currently being evaluated in the Phase 2 LUNA trial as a potential one-time intravitreal (IVT) injection for patients in the treatment of neovascular or wet age-related macular degeneration (wet AMD).

Andys deep experience across process and assay development and scale up of CMC, including transitioning and expanding viral vector gene therapy capabilities to global commercial scale and with the SF9 technology platform, will be critically important as continue to execute on Ixo-vecs clinical development and build out pipeline, stated Peter Soparkar, chief operating officer of Adverum Biotechnologies. Ixo-vec has shown therapeutic aflibercept levels and stabilized vision in patients with wet AMD with a single IVT injection out to three years. With the Phase 2 LUNA trial fully enrolled, manufacturing focus is on scale up for future commercialization of Ixo-vec.

Dr. Ramelmeier has more than 30 years of experience in the development and manufacturing of biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies, vaccines, gene and cell therapy products and therapeutic proteins. Most recently, Dr. Ramelmeier served as executive vice president, head of technical operations at Sangamo Therapeutics, where he was responsible for quality, process and analytical development, manufacturing and supply chain of viral vector and cell therapy pipeline products, as well as the oversight of two internal GMP facilities and multiple contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs) /contract research organizations (CROs) for manufacturing and quality control (QC) activities. Prior to Sangamo, Dr. Ramelmeier served as senior vice president, technical operations at Portola Pharmaceuticals, responsible for the process development, technology transfer, manufacturing, and supply chain of small and large molecule pipeline products.

Before that, Dr. Ramelmeier held positions of increasing responsibility at several companies, including BioMarin Pharmaceuticals, Johnson &Johnson and Merck Research Laboratories. Dr. Ramelmeier earned his B.E.S. in Chemical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of California, Berkeley. He conducted post-doctoral work at The Institute of Enzyme Technology affiliated with the Heinrich-Heine-University of Dusseldorf.