New CMO to Drive In-House Programs to Clinic

Dr Jose Saro has joined Avacta Group as Chief Medical Officer to lead the Group’s therapeutic development strategy and drive the in-house programmes into the clinic.

Bringing over 20 years’ experience in the pre-clinical, translational and early clinical development of oncology assets, spanning small molecules, biologics and drug conjugates, Dr Saro joins Avacta, the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents, from Roche where he was Senior Translational Medicine Leader at the Roche Innovation Center Zurich in which he focused on immuno-oncology and the development of combination products.

Prior to this position Dr Saro was also Executive Director Oncology Global Development and Medical Affairs at Bristol Myers Squibb, based in Paris, leading and contributing to many oncology clinical development programmes; and formerly Executive Director of Translational Medicine and Early Clinical Development (Oncology) at Novartis. He also held senior positions at Eisai, and Wyeth and

spent several years as Vice President Oncology Clinical Development at PharmaMar, an oncology focused biotech.

Dr Jose Saro said: “Due to their simple structure, Affimer® proteins can be formatted to deliver the right characteristics required for the next generation of immuno-oncology therapeutics.There are many opportunities for such a platform technology, and the recent collaboration with Tufts University Medical School is one example of a potentially game changing approach that is possible with Affimers.

“I am very excited to be part of Avacta as it continues to develop such transformative approaches using the Affimer®platform, that I believe will be a huge benefit to many oncology patients who currently have limited therapeutic options.”