10 November 2021 - - Switzerland-based biotechnology company Alentis Therapeutics has appointed Luca Santarelli, M.D. as independent non-executive director, and Rafaèle Tordjman, M.D. PhD as chairperson of its board of directors, with immediate effect, the company said.

Dr. Luca Santarelli is a physician scientist and an entrepreneurial pharmaceutical executive with more than 20 years' experience in academic and industrial R and D and business development.

Luca is the founder and CEO of VectivBio AG, a clinical-stage rare disease company that raised USD 146.6m in a NASDAQ IPO in April this year.

Prior to this, he served as CEO and co-founder of Therachon AG, which was acquired by Pfizer, Inc. in 2019 for USD 810m.

Luca previously worked at Roche for 11 years, where he advanced over 20 molecules into the clinic and progressed several more to registration studies, including Ocrevus in Multiple Sclerosis, Evrysdi in Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Faricimab in neovascular age-related macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema, and Gantenerumab in Alzheimer's disease

Alentis Therapeutics is a Swiss-based biotech that focuses on developing breakthrough treatments for fibrotic diseases.

The company was founded in 2019 based on ground-breaking research in the laboratory of Prof. Thomas Baumert MD at the University of Strasbourg and the French National Institute of Health (Inserm).

The company's lead candidates are monoclonal antibodies that are highly selective for Claudin-1, a novel, previously unexploited target with a unique mechanism of action that plays a key role in the pathology of liver fibrosis and fibrosis-driven hepatobiliary cancers.

It also has early discovery programs exploring the potential of Claudin-1 inhibition in the treatment of fibrosis of other tissues including the kidney and lung.

These represent very large and expanding markets with high unmet need. Furthermore, the company uses a patient-derived drug and target discovery platform to develop medicines for advanced fibrosis.

Unlike current therapies in fibrosis, which mostly address the disease indirectly, Alentis' pioneering approach has the potential to directly modify and reverse the course of disease progression.

Alentis is headquartered in Basel's pharma-biotech hub in Switzerland with a subsidiary for R and D in Strasbourg, France.