Transfer Center for Extracellular Vesicles – Theralytic Technologies(EV-TT)
Taros Chemicals’ SVP Dr. Torsten Hoffmann appointed as chairman to EV-TT’s Scientific Advisory Board
Salzburg, Austria & Dortmund, Germany, 22 October 2019 ++++
A research cooperation of the Paracelsus Medical University Salzburg and the Paris Lodron University Salzburg co-founded a „Transfer Center for Extracellular Vesicles – Theralytic Technologies“ (EV-TT) to conduct fundamental and applied biomedical research and development with a focus on revolutionary and innovative, regenerative medicine and drug delivery approaches using extracellular vesicles. The project has a total volume of € 3.6 million and received funding from Land Salzburg/IWB/EFRE 2014-2020 and Land Salzburg/WISS 2025 over a period of four years. The new research entity appointed Torsten Hoffmann, SVP Drug Discovery at Taros to chair the Scientific Advisory Board.
Dr. Mario Gimona, Head of Manufacturing at the GMP Unit at PMU
“EV-TT has identified the critical bottleneck in the translation of research knowledge into clinical trials and will contribute decisively to the development of crucial analytical test systems for the characterization of safe and potent Vesicle-based therapeutics.”
Professor Nicole Meisner-Kober, Head of Department of Chemical Biology and Biological Therapeutics, PLUS
“Extracellular Vesicles have disruptive potential for the Health Care sector, ranging from diagnostics to regenerative medicine and drug delivery. EV-TT provides a unique constellation of interdisciplinary competencies at the interface of basic research, clinical applications and pharmaceutical drug development to resolve scientific and technological bottlenecks for developing novel EV-pharmaceutical platforms and translating EV-based therapies to the patients”.
Dr. Torsten Hoffmann, Senior Vice President Drug Discovery at Taros Chemicals
“I feel both honored and privileged to chair the Scientific Advisory Board of the EV-TT. The Transfer Center will establish an international reference and competence cluster for revolutionary and innovative therapies in the field which will position Salzburg uniquely as an internationally leading scientific research, clinical development and production center for extracellular vesicles and theralytic technologies as pharmaceutical therapeutics.”
With more than 20 years of international R&D leadership experience, Torsten is an expert in the field of Drug Discovery. For the past 6 years, he has served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Scientific Officer at Silence Therapeutics, as Chief Scientific Officer and Managing Director at Proteros biostructures, and prior to that as Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President at Zealand Pharma. During this tenure and under his leadership, he has been instrumental in building and growing proprietary R&D portfolios with the most advanced assets now conducting clinical phase 3 trials. Among other appointments, Torsten serves as consultant and SAB member at Hesperos, BioSolveIT, ZeCardioTherapeutics and Elsevier.
Torsten started his career at Roche where he spent 16 years in various roles with increasing responsibility including Site Head of Medicinal Chemistry in Basel, and Head of the Global Roche Postdoc Fellowship Program. Under his leadership, his group created 52 new chemical lead series and more than 25 NCEs entered clinical trials as potential Roche medicines. Moreover, he is the lead inventor of the anti-emetic medicine Netupitant, discovered at Roche and approved by the FDA as Akynzeo© in 2014.
About Taros Chemicals
Taros is a privately owned discovery chemistry company, working with global pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical companies since 1999. Alongside our performance chemicals and material science division, Taros’ drug discovery mission is to create drug candidates as potential new medicines. Taros has a strong scientific track record on many biomolecular targets in all main therapeutic areas and thereby adding considerable value to collaborations from target validation and hit identification to lead generation and optimization. Taros’ core expertise ranges from custom synthesis and process development to modern medicinal and computational chemistry, as well as compound library design and production.
Taros was heading the chemistry efforts of the EUR 196 million funded European Lead Factory (2013-2018) and is currently heading its EUR 36.5 million funded continuation (2019-2022). Moreover, Taros is deeply engaged in other research alliances like the EUR 11 million funded Drug Discovery Hub Dortmund.
Press Contact:
Youri R. Mesmoudi, Executive Vice President, e-mail: innovation |at| taros.de
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