July 15, 2021 - Autolus Therapeutics plc (Nasdaq: AUTL), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation programmed T cell therapies, today announced the appointment of Edgar Braendle M.D., Ph.D., as chief development officer. Dr Braendle is joining Autolus’ executive team today and will lead the company's development organization.
“Edgar joins Autolus at an exciting time, with our lead program obe-cel in a pivotal study for the treatment of relapsed/refractory adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL),” said Dr. Christian Itin, chief executive officer of Autolus. “His in-depth oncology development experience and leadership skills, acquired over the course of his extensive career, will be invaluable in progressing obe-cel through its first pivotal study and to start the planning and preparations for our first BLA filing.”
"Driving the first potentially curative and well tolerated therapy for adult ALL patients to approval is a unique opportunity given the underserved nature of this disease,” said Dr. Braendle. "I look forward to working with my colleagues at Autolus and our academic collaborators to realize the opportunities, not just for obe-cel, but across our pipeline of next generation CAR T therapies."
Dr. Braendle is an experienced oncologist. He joins Autolus from Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Oncology (SDPO), where he held the position of Chief Medical Officer and Global Head of Development and was responsible for leading the global oncology development programs of Sumitomo Dainippon. At SDPO, he led the full range of development functions spanning from early and late-stage clinical development, medical affairs, clinical operation, project management, CMC, regulatory affairs, quality, bio-statistics, data management, PV & drug safety, and clinical pharmacology. Prior to that, he held the role of Executive VP, Head of Research and Development and Chief Medical Officer at Boston Biomedical Inc. Previously, Dr. Braendle served as President and CEO of ARUP Laboratories, a national clinical and anatomic pathology reference laboratory. Prior to this, he spent more than a decade at Novartis, where he served as Senior Vice President and Global Head of Companion Diagnostics leading the company's precision medicine approach. In an earlier role as Vice President, Global Head of Oncology Biologics, Dr. Braendle led the development of oncology biologics in early to late stages. He started his industry career at Schering AG. Dr. Braendle received a medical degree and training in hematologic malignancies and solid tumor oncology, pharmacology and urology at the University of Aachen, University of Bonn, and the University of Ulm in Germany.
About Autolus Therapeutics plc
Autolus is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing next-generation, programmed T cell therapies for the treatment of cancer. Using a broad suite of proprietary and modular T cell programming technologies, the company is engineering precisely targeted, controlled and highly active T cell therapies that are designed to better recognize cancer cells, break down their defense mechanisms and eliminate these cells. Autolus has a pipeline of product candidates in development for the treatment of hematological malignancies and solid tumors. For more information, please visit www.autolus.com.
About obe-cel
obe-cel is a CD19 CAR T cell investigational therapy designed to overcome the limitations in clinical activity and safety compared to current CD19 CAR T cell therapies. Designed to have a fast target binding off-rate to minimize excessive activation of the programmed T cells, obe-cel may reduce toxicity and be less prone to T cell exhaustion, which could enhance persistence and improve the ability of the programmed T cells to engage in serial killing of target cancer cells. In collaboration with our academic partner, UCL, obe-cel is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1 clinical trial in adult ALL and B-NHL. The company has also progressed obe-cel to the FELIX study, a potential pivotal study.