Kymab appoints Dr Arndt Schottelius as Executive Vice President Research & Development

Kymab Group Limited ("Kymab"), a leading human monoclonal antibody biopharmaceutical group, announced today the appointment of Dr Arndt Schottelius as its first Executive Vice President Research & Development. Dr Schottelius will lead the Research and Development activities, including pre-clinical and clinical developments of Kymab’s expanding therapeutic antibody portfolio. The appointment will take effect in May 2017.

Dr Schottelius joins Kymab from MorphoSys AG, where he served as the first Chief Development Officer since 2008, developing the portfolio of proprietary therapeutic antibody programmes in cancer and immunology. Prior to his role at MorphoSys, Dr Schottelius was a Medical Director, Immunology Development at Genentech Inc., South San Francisco, where he directed early and late-stage clinical development programmes of therapeutic antibodies. Before joining Genentech, Dr Schottelius held science and management positions in immunology research at Schering AG, Berlin, Germany and Berlex Biosciences, Richmond, California.

Dr David Chiswell, CEO of Kymab, commented: "I am delighted to welcome Dr Schottelius to the Kymab team. His strong management expertise developed at both MorphoSys AG and Genentech as well as his unique experience and track record in drug development supports our commitment to pursue the opportunities in our R&D programmes following our recent $100m Series C funding. Dr Schottelius’ appointment validates the current strength and exciting potential of our growing product pipeline."

Dr Arndt Schottelius, newly appointed Executive Vice President Research & Development of Kymab, added: "I relish the prospect of working with the Kymab team and building a strong antibody pipeline in areas that I have specialised in, including key therapeutic areas of cancer, haematology, autoimmune and infectious diseases. Kymab has one of the most comprehensive transgenic antibody platform technologies, from which it can generate a broad diversity of fully human antibodies with great potential to find rare drug candidates with best-in-class characteristics. I am looking forward to working with the team to unlock Kymnab’s undoubted potential and develop treatments that will benefit patients."

During his 18-year career in the pharmaceutical industry, Dr Schottelius has established a successful track record of advancing therapeutics from late-stage research into early and late-stage clinical developments. He has extensive experience in discovery, project and portfolio management, pre-clinical and clinical development, as well as FDA negotiations and regulatory filings.

Dr Schottelius studied medicine in Freiburg, Germany and at the Royal Free Hospital in London. He holds a PhD and MD degree from the University of Freiburg, Germany. Subsequently, he practised medicine as a resident physician in gastroenterology at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin in Berlin, Germany, and held a research fellowship from the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before working in the pharmaceutical industry.

About Kymab

Kymab Group Limited ("Kymab") is a leading biopharmaceutical group focused on the discovery and development of fully human monoclonal antibody drugs using its proprietary Kymouse™ antibody platform.

Kymab has raised over US$220m of equity financing which includes $100m Series C financing. It has an experienced management team with a successful track record in drug discovery and development and has numerous therapeutic antibody programmes in immuno-oncology, auto-immunity, haematology, infectious disease and other areas.

About Kymouse™

Kymouse™ is a transgenic human antibody platform to discover and develop fully human monoclonal antibody drugs. Work published in Nature Biotechnology demonstrate that the Kymouse™ technology yields an antibody library constituted from 100 trillion different antibodies. From this deep library, rare high-quality antibodies can be selected and developed into therapeutics. Kymouse™ has been designed to maximise the diversity of human antibodies produced in response to immunisation with antigens. Selecting from a broad diversity of fully human antibodies assures the highest probability of finding that rare drug candidate with best-in-class characteristics. The Kymouse™ naturally matures these molecules to highly potent drugs obviating the need for further time-consuming modifications. Kymab is using the platform for its internal drug discovery programmes and in partnership with pharmaceutical companies.