WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Xilio Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing potent, tumor-selective immuno-oncology therapies for people living with cancer, today announced that Rónán O’Hagan, Ph.D., has been promoted to chief scientific officer from his previous role as senior vice president of research and translational science. In addition, Xilio has appointed Li Malmberg, Ph.D., as chief technology and manufacturing officer and Uli Bialucha, Ph.D., as senior vice president of research.
“We have strengthened our R&D organization with several highly experienced leaders, each of whom brings significant expertise that will be instrumental as we progress our lead programs toward the clinic. Rónán has played an integral role in setting the scientific strategy for our tumor-selective immuno-oncology programs, guiding their development from early discovery to preparing for planned IND submissions for our two lead product candidates, XTX202 and XTX101, later this year,” said Rene Russo, chief executive officer of Xilio Therapeutics. “In addition, we are very pleased to welcome Li and Uli to the Xilio team. They both have impressive track records of success in technical operations and manufacturing, and immuno-oncology drug development, respectively. The combined knowledge of these R&D leaders will be critical as we continue to grow and advance our therapies.”
Dr. O’Hagan has 25 years of oncology and research and development experience across industry and academia. Since joining Xilio in 2018, he has contributed significantly to the company’s overall scientific progress against its goals. Prior to Xilio, he led the oncology discovery program at Merck with a particular emphasis on approaches to enable and enhance immune-modulatory therapies in cancer. Prior to Merck, Dr. O’Hagan was a founding scientist and research leader at AVEO Oncology.
Dr. Malmberg joins Xilio with over 25 years of scientific and executive leadership experience managing aspects of strategic decision making in CMC strategies, IP portfolios and external partnerships. Most recently, she served as senior vice president, head of CMC technical operations at Magenta Therapeutics. Prior to this, Dr. Malmberg served as vice president of biologics development and manufacturing at Celgene where she was responsible for developing and manufacturing clinical and commercial biologics products globally. The majority of Dr. Malmberg’s career was spent at AbbVie, where she was director, head of process sciences. Over the course of her career, she built and led an organization of more than 80 scientists and engineers responsible for developing and delivering high quality biologics drug substances from pre-clinical to commercial launch.
Dr. Bialucha joins Xilio with a proven track record of building high-performing, multi-disciplinary teams that have delivered clinical lead molecules across a diverse array of modalities, with broad experience in oncology/immuno-oncology drug discovery and pre-clinical development. Most recently, he held the role of vice president of drug discovery at Immunitas Therapeutics, where he led the immunology and computational biology groups and was responsible for developing a single cell genomics-based discovery platform and immuno-oncology focused therapeutic pipeline. Prior to Immunitas Therapeutics, Dr. Bialucha held positions at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, where he led the oncology biotherapeutics group, directing multiple programs into clinical development, including monoclonal antibodies, T-cell engaging bispecific antibodies and antibody drug conjugates.
About Xilio Therapeutics
Xilio Therapeutics is a privately-held biotechnology company that uses its proprietary technology to engineer potent cancer immunotherapies that unleash the power of the immune system selectively at the site of the tumor. Xilio has designed these therapies to maximize efficacy while overcoming the significant toxicities associated with certain clinically validated immuno-oncology therapies, such as IL-2 and anti-CTLA4. The broad applicability of these therapies across cancer types means that a significant number of patients could benefit from these potentially curative medicines.
