Affinivax Appoints Stuart Chaffee, PhD, as Chief Business Officer

Biotech leader joins executive team as company evolves vaccine pipeline and grows business

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Affinivax, Inc. (“Affinivax”), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering the development of a novel class of vaccines with its MAPS™ (Multiple Antigen Presenting System) platform, today announced that Stuart Chaffee, PhD, has joined the company as Chief Business Officer. Dr. Chaffee brings to Affinivax extensive experience in business operations, finance and corporate development, including previous roles as Chief Business Officer and CFO at Praxis Precision Medicines and as Head of Business Operations and Co-founder of Kymera Therapeutics.

“We are very pleased to welcome Stuart to our leadership team, as he brings a wealth of financial, strategic planning and operations expertise that will be immensely valuable to Affinivax as we take on the major opportunities ahead of us,” said Steven Brugger, Chief Executive Officer of Affinivax. “Stuart’s strategic skills, financial acumen and breadth of knowledge across drug development will guide our decision-making as Affinivax continues to advance our novel class of MAPS vaccines to impact human health.”

“This is an exciting time to join Affinivax as the company makes clinical progress with its pipeline of MAPS vaccines, and I am eager to leverage my experience to help the company achieve its goals as a vaccine innovator,” said Dr. Chaffee. “I am delighted to be part of a strong and accomplished team that is pioneering a new approach to vaccines with the MAPS platform that can have an impact on preventing and treating many diseases.”

Stuart Chaffee brings over 20 years of R&D, business and corporate development experience to Affinivax. Most recently, Dr. Chaffee served as the Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Praxis Precision Medicines. Dr. Chaffee’s business-building background in drug discovery and development includes his role as Entrepreneur in Residence at Atlas Venture where he was co-founder and Head of Business Operations at Kymera Therapeutics. Earlier in his career, Dr. Chaffee served in a number of roles at Biogen across Finance, Business Development, Program Leadership, and Corporate Strategy. Dr. Chaffee received a BS in chemistry from The College of William and Mary, a PhD in organic chemistry from Yale University, and an MBA in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

About Affinivax, Inc.

Affinivax is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering the development of a novel class of vaccines designed to induce a broad and robust protective immune response to both disease-relevant polysaccharides and disease-relevant proteins in a single vaccine. Affinivax designs each of its vaccine candidates to optimize the protective immune response to one or both of these antigens utilizing the distinctive plug-and-play nature of its proprietary MAPS™ platform technology, presenting the potential opportunity to make a significant step forward in addressing major healthcare challenges posed by novel and resistant infectious diseases. Affinivax was founded in 2014 with a seed investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and an exclusive license to the MAPS technology from Boston Children’s Hospital. For more information, visit www.affinivax.com.