Avacta Group picks up Jose Saro as chief medical officer

Biotherapeutic development company Avacta Group announced on Wednesday that Dr Jose Saro has been appointed as its chief medical officer, to lead its therapeutic development strategy and drive the in-house programmes into the clinic.

The AIM-traded firm said Dr Saro would bring more than 20 years of experience in the pre-clinical, translational and early clinical development of oncology assets, spanning small molecules, biologics and drug conjugates.

Dr Saro was joining Avacta from Roche, where he held the role of senior translational medicine leader at the Roche Innovation Center Zurich, in which he focussed on immuno-oncology and the development of combination products.

Prior to his position at Roche, Dr Saro was executive director of oncology global development and medical affairs at Bristol Myers Squibb, based in Paris, where he led and contributed to a number of oncology clinical development programmes, including Sprycel, Ipilimumab (Yervoy anti-CTLA4), Nivolumab (anti-PD1), anti-PDL1, anti KIR, anti LAG3, Brivanib, MEK inhibitor and Elotuzumab.

Previously, Dr Saro was executive director of translational medicine and early clinical development oncology at Novartis.

Prior to that, he held senior positions at Eisai, and Wyeth.

Avacta said Dr Saro also had experience of the small biotech environment, having spent several years as vice president of oncology clinical development at PharmaMar, an oncology-focussed biotech.

There, he was head of clinical research and development teams, comprising around 45 people, located in both Madrid and Boston, Massachusetts.

“I am delighted that Dr Jose Saro is joining Avacta to lead the therapeutic development strategy and to drive the in-house ‘Affimer’ programmes into the clinic,” said chief executive officer Alastair Smith.

“His extensive experience in developing pre-clinical assets and translating those into clinical development will be an invaluable asset to Avacta.”

Smith said Dr Saro was joining Avacta at a “hugely exciting” time as it progressed towards the first Affimer clinical studies, which would be a “significant” value inflection point for both the technology and group.

“We very much look forward to working with Jose on our established programmes and on leveraging his knowledge to expand the pipeline of innovative and valuable immuno-oncology assets for the future.”

Dr Jose Saro said that, due to their “simple structure”, Affimer proteins could 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.”