In an extraordinary shareholders' meeting on 29 April 2016, the shareholders of the company have agreed to a capital increase of € 10m. The new shares have equally been subscribed by the two major investors of the company, Santo Holding – the family office of the Strüngmann family – , the MIG Funds advised by MIG Verwaltungs AG and new investor FCPG Affi GmbH. In the ordinary shareholders' meeting on 15 June 2016, the shareholders also elected Noel Barrett as additional member of the Supervisory Board. He replaces Dr. Frank Mattner whose tenure as supervisory board member has ended on 31 December 2015.
Noel Barrett has more than 30 years’ experience in the vaccines and biotechnology industry with management responsibilities covering the complete development process required to bring vaccine products to the market. In his last position at Baxter Healthcare, Noel Barrett was Vice President, Global R&D Vaccines and has successfully overseen the development of numerous vaccine candidates through preclinical and clinical development.
Michael Motschmann, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of AFFiRiS commented: "We are excited to welcome Noel Barrett to the Supervisory Board of AFFiRiS. His product development expertise will be tremendously valuable as the company focuses on advancing its projects in clinical development."
The company has decided to adapt its management structure to focus on development, both preclinical and clinical of its projects. All preclinical development will be led by Günther Staffler (48) whom the Supervisory Board has appointed as Chief Technology Officer and member of the executive board of AFFiRiS. Günther Staffler has previously been responsible as Head of Immunology for the preclinical development of its vaccine candidates AT04A and AT06A in Hypercholesterolemia and Atherosclerosis prevention which are currently being tested in Phase 1 clinical development. The company also announces the departure of Achim Schneeberger, previously Chief Medical Officer and Arne von Bonin, Chief Scientific Officer.
AFFIRIS commenced Phase 1 clinical development of its Hypercholesterolemia and Atherosclerosis prevention vaccine candidates AT04A and AT06A and expects data from this study in Q1 2017. AT04A and AT06A are vaccine candidates from the next generation AFFITOME® technology and target PCSK9, an enzyme which plays a role in the lipid metabolism of the liver. If PCSK9 is blocked, more LDL receptors will be present on the surface of the liver and will remove more LDL cholesterol from the blood. Therefore, blocking PCSK9 can lower blood cholesterol levels.
About AFFiRiS AG:
On the basis of its proprietary patented AFFITOME®-technolgy, AFFiRiS develops tailor-made therapeutic peptide vaccines against chronic diseases. Its clinical pipeline consists of 3 drug candidates against Parkinson’s, MSA and Hypercholesterolemia. Further vaccine candidates against diabetes, allergies, asthma as well as Huntington's disease are in preclinical development. AFFiRiS has been able to attract funding of approx. € 130m to date, half of which comes from license income and government grants. AFFiRiS currently employs 60 highly qualified staff at the Campus Vienna Biocenter in Vienna, Austria.
www.affiris.com