BASEL, Switzerland — (19 October 2021) Alentis Therapeutics, the Swiss biotech developing breakthrough treatments for fibrotic diseases, announced today that Geoffrey Teixeira has joined the team as Head of Fibrosis.

Geoffrey brings more than 9 years of industrial drug development experience in inflammatory and fibrotic diseases. He was most recently Translational Research Lead of Fibrosis at Galapagos, Mechelen, Belgium. At Galapagos he was responsible for leading translational activities for the company’s fibrosis pipeline, and for reverse translation activities and platform development, combining multi-omics and machine learning approaches for the identification of new targets and biomarkers.

Prior to Galapagos, Geoffrey was Project Leader and Therapeutic Area Lead of Fibrosis at Evotec, Göttingen, Germany, overseeing and bringing drug discovery programs (small molecules and biologics) as well as the R&D platform in NASH and tissue fibrosis to decision milestones. These initiatives led to multiple alliances with biopharmaceutical companies and investors.

Welcoming Mr. Teixeira to the company, Dr. Roberto Iacone, CEO of Alentis said, “Geoffrey’s extensive scientific and translational expertise in the area of fibrosis, as well as his strong relationships within the research, clinical investigator communities, will be instrumental as we further advance the development strategy of our novel anti-fibrotic ALE.F02”.

“I really look forward to working with this exceptional team and our collaborators to enable effective treatments for multi-organ fibrosis with significant unmet medical need,” said Mr. Teixeira.

Geoffrey holds a PhD in Physiology from the University of Lyon, France.

Alentis’ unique therapeutic approach focuses on the inhibition of Claudin-1 outside the tight junction and its downstream signalling acting on cell fate and plasticity. Alentis’ lead molecules ALE.F02 and ALE.C04 are highly selective anti-Claudin-1 mAb that recognize pathological overexpressed and conformation-dependent Claudin-1 epitopes in fibrotic disease and cancer. In preclinical studies, the lead molecule ALE.F02 modulates the function of non-junctional Claudin-1, preventing, and possibly reversing, the growth of fibrotic tissue within the liver and kidney by changing the plasticity of key cell types mediating fibrosis. Safety studies in non-human primates have supported translatability of the approach into patients. Alentis expects to initiate its first clinical trial in Q4 2021.