AbelZeta Announces Formation of Scientific Advisory Board to Support Inflammatory and Immunological Diseases

ROCKVILLE, MD, January 3, 2024 – AbelZeta Pharma, Inc. (“AbelZeta” or the “Company”), a global clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovery and development of innovative and proprietary cell-based therapeutic products, today announced the formation of a Scientific Advisory Board (the “SAB”) to advance its cell therapies for the treatment of inflammatory and immunological diseases. The SAB is comprised of four distinguished scientists from the U.S. and Europe. 

“The SAB will help us to gain useful knowledge about the latest treatment options, as well as disease pathology and potential biomarkers. We work on many inflammatory and immunological diseases that will allow us to gain strategic insights and speed up the clinical development of these assets,” said Tony (Bizuo) Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Company. “We are enthused  to have Dr. Peter Lipsky,  Dr. Mary Crow, Dr. Maria Dall’Era and Dr. Thomas Dörner to serve as members of the SAB.  These four industry experts are distinguished scientific leaders with vast experience in the autoimmune disease field.”

Members of the SAB include:

Peter Lipsky, M.D., served on the Board of Directors of the American College of Rheumatology. He was the chair of the Medical and Scientific Committee of the Arthritis Foundation, the Director of the Intramural Research Program and chair of the Autoimmunity Branch at the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Lipsky has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Carol Nachman Prize, the American College of Rheumatology Distinguished Investigator Award, the Lee Howley Prize for Arthritis Research, and the Japan Rheumatology Prize. He has authored more than 750 research papers and is a former editor of the Journal of Immunology, Arthritis Research and Therapy and Nature Reviews Rheumatology. Dr. Lipsky is the founder and CEO of AMPEL BioSolutions.

Mary Crow, M.D., identified the type I interferon pathway as central to the pathogenesis of systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and is Physician-in-Chief Emeritus at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, and Professor of Immunology in its Graduate School of Medical Sciences. She was President of the American College of Rheumatology, President of the Henry Kunkel Society, and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lupus Research Alliance. Dr. Crow received the Lee C. Howley Sr. Prize for Arthritis Scientific Research from the Arthritis Foundation and the Presidential Gold Medal of the American College of Rheumatology in recognition of outstanding contributions to rheumatology.

Maria Dall’Era, M.D., is the Jean S. Engleman Distinguished Professor and Chief of the Division of Rheumatology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and serves as the Chair of the Lupus Clinical Investigators Network. She is the director of the UCSF Lupus Clinic and also the director of the Rheumatology Clinical Research Center in which she oversees the conduct of various clinical trials and observational research studies. Her research program is focused on the design and conduct of clinical trials of novel biologic agents for SLE and lupus nephritis, understanding the biological mechanisms and outcomes of SLE via a population based SLE longitudinal cohort funded by the Centers of Disease Control, and the development of outcome measures for lupus nephritis.  She has received several awards in recognition of her work including the Edmund L. Dubois award from the American College of Rheumatology and the Evelyn V. Hess award from the Lupus Foundation of America.

Thomas Dörner, M.D., is a professor of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology for Innovative Therapies for Autoimmune Diseases at Charité University Hospitals, Berlin, and Liaison Group Leader of B cell Memory at the German Research Center of Rheumatology, Berlin. He researched delineating molecular aspects of the B-cell receptor gene usage, functional and plasma cell abnormalities in autoimmune diseases and has led various clinical trials of rheumatic diseases, including SLE, Sjögren’s syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis and seronegative spondyloarthropathies. Dr. Dörner has received a number of awards, including the Senior Scholar Award of the American Society of Rheumatology, the H Schultze Award of the German League against Rheumatism, the Schoen Award of the German Society of Rheumatology, and the Honorary EULAR Award 2023.

“We have some promising assets that allow us to target both B cells and plasma cells to tackle those autoimmune diseases in which both cells play a key role in disease pathogenesis, including relapse and flare up. Many autoimmune diseases significantly reduce the quality of life of patients, and chronic disease is often life-threatening. The Company has generated a substantial amount of positive, encouraging efficacy and safety data on CD19, CD20 and BCMA CAR-T assets in cancer. With our CD20/BCMA and BCMA/CD19 bispecific CARs, we believe that these two assets will help address the significant unmet medical needs of many patients suffering from a variety of autoimmune diseases,” said Yihong Yao, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of the Company.

“AbelZeta is advancing promising new therapies for inflammatory and immunological diseases through innovative cell therapy platforms that provide custom-tailored treatment for each individual patient. We believe in the approach of targeting both B cells and plasma cells for selected autoimmune diseases and the potential for the Company to deliver a solution to address the high unmet medical needs in these patients, ” said Dr. Lipsky, the chairman of the SAB.

About AbelZeta’s autoimmune CAR-T program
CD20/BCMA and BCMA/CD19 bispecific CAR constructs
AbelZeta is developing multiple CAR-Ts, including CD20/BCMA and BCMA/CD19 bispecific CARs to target both B cells and plasma cells. The molecular structure of these CAR-Ts is optimized, the efficacy and safety of these CAR-Ts are clinically tested, and their effectiveness is also demonstrated in preclinical studies.