Aurealis Therapeutics, a synthetic biology company developing ground-breaking four-in-one cell and gene therapies, announced today that Mr. Laurent Décory, who joined the Board of Directors in June 2020, has accepted to join the company management team as Chief Operating Officer. Laurent will be in charge of Business Development, Health Economics, Marketing & Communication and Scientific Advisory activities. The timing of the nomination of Dr. Décory occurs in parallel with the company successfully completing an exclusive license and collaboration agreement with XBiome, for the clinical development and commercialization of AUP-16, Aurealis investigational therapy for Diabetic Foot Ulcer (DFU), other chronic wounds, and inflammatory diseases, in greater China.
Laurent brings to the company substantial experience and commercial leadership both in the Advanced Wound Care (AWC, Medtech) and Pharmaceutical industries. On top of being a board member for the past two years, Laurent is the Managing Director of the company BlueJet Consulting, and was previously Head, Global Commercial Excellence of Essity Health and Medical. Prior to that, Laurent was also Senior Vice-President, Global Commercial Excellence at BSN Medical in Hamburg. Previously, he held a variety of senior management and director roles at Takeda and Nycomed in Zurich, and Sanofi-Aventis and predecessor companies in Paris. Laurent has MSc. and PhD in Neurosciences & Pharmacology from University of Bordeaux and holds MBA from the ESSEC Business School, Paris.
“We have enjoyed having Laurent as a board member and we are thrilled to have him joining our management team,” said Juha Yrjänheikki, CEO of Aurealis Therapeutics. “His vast commercial and strategic experience and leadership combined with scientific drive and understanding in the Medtech and Pharma industry are unique and impressive. We look forward to his contributions to the company as we are advancing in our phase 2 patient trials and need to think more and more about the commercial end-product and partnering/co-development.”
“I am very excited to join Aurealis Therapeutics as Chief Operating Officer,” said Dr. Décory. “Chronic wounds represent a major unmet medical need and a massive burden to patients and society. I look forward to working with the whole team, the Scientific Advisory Board, and the Board members to make this game-changing technology better known and closer to commercialization. Moreover, I share the passion within the team to expand AUP-16 usage to other inflammatory indications as well”
About AUP-16
AUP-16 is a genetically engineered Lactococcus lactis, a non-pathogenic bacterium, expressing human basic fibroblast growth factor (FGF2, bFGF), interleukin-4 (IL4) and macrophage colony stimulating factor (CSF1, mCSF) – all in one product and accepted as one active pharmaceutical ingredient from regulatory perspective. AUP-16 is topically applied on chronic wounds and covered by wound dressing (e.g. in DFU, venous leg ulcers and pressure ulcers). In the wound AUP-16 acts as millions of immune activating bioreactors producing the therapeutic proteins, which are designed to i) halt the chronic inflammation in the wound and promote M2 inflammatory switch, ii) induce the growth of new blood vessels, and iii) promote the granulation tissue formation and skin re-epithelization – all in one product.
About Aurealis Therapeutics
Aurealis Therapeutics AG is a Swiss-Finnish private clinical-stage synthetic biology company focusing on the development of lactic acid bacteria -based GMO cell and gene therapies. The company’s lead clinical asset is AUP-16, the first-in-class four-in-one cell and gene therapy drug for chronic wounds and other inflammatory degenerative diseases. The product is based on proprietary technology involving genetically engineered lactic acid bacteria acting as millions of small immune activating bioreactors in the human tissue and producing multiple human therapeutic proteins into target tissue to effectively and safely re-educate the distorted host immune microenvironment to proper state.
For more information:
Juha Yrjänheikki, CEO
Tel: +358 45 8433550
Email: juha(at)aurealistherapeutics.com
