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Chief Medical Officer and Director Clinical Operations join as RAGE Biotech gears up to become a clinical stage company

RAGE Biotech, a pharmaceutical start-up company with a game-changing precision RNA medicine for chronic inflammatory disease, is gearing up to become a clinical stage company with two key clinical appointments.

We are delighted to announce that Dr Aili Lazaar has joined the Company as our Chief Medical Officer. Dr Lazaar was Director, Discovery Medicine at GSK for 18 years, specialising in early-phase development in respiratory medicines, and is an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Dr Lazaar has published extensively in COPD, asthma and mechanisms of airway inflammation, and is a Board-certified clinician in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Disease. Aili has a Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from Harvard and an MD from NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

We are also delighted to announce that Nic Kruger, one of Australia’s most experienced clinical trials professionals, recently joined as our Director Clinical Operations. Nic is highly sought-after for her extensive experience in clinical trial management and regulatory strategy in the Australian, US and European regulatory environments and her experience spans biotech and pharma, including previous positions at CSL, GSK, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Novartis.

Aili and Nic will work closely with our preclinical leadership team and translational advisory group as we advance our innovative RNA-targeting therapeutics to the clinic. Our preclinical programme is led by Director Preclinical Development, Matthew Reed PhD DABT ATSF, a leading expert in aerosol drug delivery, safety and toxicology. Our translational advisory group includes Yolanda Sanchez PhD, an ex-GSK inhalational medicine veteran, Gary Anderson MFA PhD FThorSoc FERS ATSF, a thought-leader in translational respiratory medicine, previously at Novartis, and Tita Ritsema PhD, a pioneer in inhaled RNA-targeting therapy.

Our most advanced drug, RBr042 for chronic lung inflammation, is an inhaled RNA oligonucleotide drug. RBr042 is currently in formal preclinical development as a nebulised therapy, in preparation for the commencement of a Phase 1 clinical trial.

RBr042 targets the inflammation accelerator RAGE in lung, and is designed to reduce tissue damage in chronic lung diseases. Chronic lung disease is the third leading cause of death worldwide, affecting over half a billion people globally¹. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), a disease of progressive and potentially fatal loss of lung function, alone affects over 300 million people worldwide², and gene association studies point to an important role for RAGE in disease severity and progression³.

 

¹ Global burden of chronic respiratory diseases and risk factors, 1990–2019: an update from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019, Lancet eClinicalMedicine 2023;59: 101936 Published Online 25 April 2023 https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.eclinm.2023. 101936

² Global Burden of Disease Study 20, Lancet 386:743-800 (2015). doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60692-4

³ Cho et al. on behalf of the NETT Genetics, ECLIPSE, and COPDGene Investigators (2015) Am J Respir Crit Care Med 192, 559–569

 

About RAGE Biotech

RAGE Biotech Pty Ltd is a pharmaceutical start-up company developing novel therapeutics for patients with difficult-to-treat inflammatory disease. With our proprietary RNA therapeutics and peptide technologies, we are developing drugs targeting the Receptor for Advanced Glycation End-products (RAGE), a clinically important, pro-inflammatory ‘sensing’ receptor. Our most advanced programme is an inhaled drug for lung diseases where inflammation and scarring are a problem. RAGE Biotech was formed in 2020 with investments from IP Group, Monash Investment Holdings, the University of Western Australia and the Perron Institute. www.ragebiotech.com