T-CURX GmbH, a German CAR-T Cell Biotech Spin-Off from University of Würzburg, Appoints Ulf Grawunder as CEO

WÜRZBURG, Germany, October 06, 2022 / B3C newswire / -- T-CURX GmbH (T-CURX) today announces the appointment of its co-founder, Ulf Grawunder, PhD, as the new CEO of the company.

T-CURX, which was co-founded by Prof. Michael Hudecek, MD, University of Würzburg, Germany, Prof. Christoph Rader, PhD, University of Florida, FL, U.S., and Ulf Grawunder, PhD, is a German Biotech spin-out from the University of Würzburg and is pioneering next-generation CAR-T cell therapies for cancer patients.

Ulf has a strong track record in founding and building Biotech companies from the ground up and all the way toward an exit. His 20 years career as a founder and successful serial entrepreneur included the Swiss Biotech companies 4-Antibody AG, sold to US-based Agenus (NASDAQ: AGEN) in 2012, and NBE-Therapeutics, sold to German privately-held Boehringer Ingelheim for USD $1.4 bn in 2021.

With this proven CEO leadership on board, T-CURX will now focus on further developing and commercializing novel, highly scalable and cost-efficient CAR-T cell technologies to reach more cancer patients with an unmet need for highly effective cancer treatments. T-CURX’ novel CAR-T approach is centered around a comprehensive suite of proprietary CAR-T cell technologies that are based on virus-free Sleeping Beauty transposon technology developed in the laboratory of co-founder Michael Hudecek.

The IP portfolio of the company consists of eight patent families that provides both strong protection and an attractive competitive positioning within the Company´s peer group. In addition, a differentiated pre-clinical and clinical CAR-T cell product pipeline addressing novel CAR-T cell targets beyond those currently on the market, provides further differentiation and leverage potential.

In order to secure complementary skills for the envisaged company growth strategy, Ulf will assemble a top-tier management and an operational team at T-CURX with strong drug-develoment and industry experience that will efficiently advance the company’s attractive CAR-T product pipeline.

Ulf Grawunder comments: “I am extremely excited about the opportunity to lead the transition of T-CURX, from a primarily grant-funded, close-to-academia environment to a leading European CAR-T cell Biotech company. It is a privilege to leverage the CAR-T innovations of my co-founders Michael Hudecek, one of the leading European CAR-T cell experts, and Christoph Rader, a leader in developing antibody-based targeted cancer therapies.

The achievements of T-CURX during its early years are impressive: We not only have a solid IP basis covering all of T-CURX’s proprietary technologies and product opportunities, but we have also achieved the translation of our novel and superior CAR-T manufacturing platform to the stage of clinical trials in human patients. CAR-T cell therapies are proven to be the most effective anti-cancer therapies resulting in complete remission in many patients following a single CAR-T cell infusion.

However, conventional CAR-T manufacturing is complex, not sufficiently scalable and hence excessively expensive. At T-CURX we have solutions for these limitations allowing us to bring these highly effective immunological medicines to many more cancer patients in the future. Giving more patients access to these transformative and highly effective anti-cancer medicines is my personal motivation to bring T-CURX to a success in the future.”

About T-CURX
T-CURX is a privately owned, German Biotech company based in Würzburg founded in 2017 with the vision of bringing next-generation CAR-T cell therapies manufactured with more cost-effective and highly scalable CAR-T cell technologies to more cancer patients in need of more effective cancer therapies. The proprietary CAR-T technologies of T-CURX were developed in the laboratory of co-founder Prof. Michael Hudecek at the University of Würzburg and are exclusively licensed to T-CURX. The highly efficient, scalable and cost-effective core technology is based on virus-free, Sleeping-beauty transposon gene transfer into patient’s T cells. Additional proprietary technologies that will be leveraged in T-CURX’ developing CAR-T cell product pipeline include (i) the proprietary Matchmaker technology for optimized potency and efficacy of T-CURX’ CAR-T cell products and (ii) a proprietary safety-switch that allows controlling the function of CAR-T cells after infusion into patients to improve the patient safety.

Contacts

T-CURX
Ulf Grawunder, CEO
ulf@t-curx.com

For media enquiries:
+49-(0)-931-250-99-712
pr@t-curx.com

Keywords: Humans; Receptors, Chimeric Antigen; Immunotherapy; T-Lymphocytes; Neoplasms; Leadership; Organization and Administration; Biotechnology; Germany

Published by B3C newswire