Poolbeg Pharma PLC (AIM:POLB, OTC:POLBF, FRA:POLBF), the AIM-listed clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, has appointed Dr Adrian Kilcoyne to its Scientific Advisory Board, bringing more than 20 years of oncology and immunology drug development experience to the company.
Kilcoyne is currently chief medical officer at Cellectis, the French biotechnology company focused on allogeneic CAR-T therapies, which engineer a patient's immune cells to target and destroy cancer.
He previously held chief medical officer roles at Celularity and Humanigen, and has held senior positions at AstraZeneca, Celgene, Sanofi, Roche and Eli Lilly.
His appointment is expected to support Poolbeg's TOPICAL trial, which is testing POLB 001, the company's lead drug candidate designed to prevent cytokine release syndrome (CRS), a potentially life-threatening immune overreaction that can occur when patients receive certain cancer immunotherapies.
Kilcoyne said he had seen "first-hand both the clinical impact on patients and the economic burden on healthcare systems" caused by CRS, and believed POLB 001 had the potential to allow more patients access to immunotherapy treatments.
Prof Luke O'Neill, chair of Poolbeg's Scientific Advisory Board, said Dr Kilcoyne's regulatory expertise would be "invaluable" as the company advances POLB 001 through clinical trials.