SciRhom Establishes a World-Class Clinical Advisory Board

SciRhom GmbH, an advanced startup dedicated to developing transformative therapies for autoimmune diseases, today announced the appointment of their Clinical Advisory Board. The five board members are key opinion leaders in SciRhom’s primary target indications of rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and lupus nephritis.

“Novel treatment options are urgently needed for the large number of patients with autoimmune diseases who do not respond to existing medications,” says Professor Iain McInnes, a member of the Clinical Advisory Board. “SciRhom’s approach to inhibit iRhom2, and thus block the pro-inflammatory signaling pathways mediated by the iRhom2 target TACE, represents a truly novel mechanism of action. I am looking forward to working with my colleagues on the Clinical Advisory Board to support and guide further development of this promising antibody.”

The inaugural members of SciRhom’s Clinical Advisory Board are:

Prof. Carl Blobel, Chairman of the Arthritis and Tissue Degeneration Program at the Hospital for Special Surgery and Professor of Medicine and Physiology, Biophysics, and Systems Biology at Weill Cornell Medicine. An authority on the enzyme TACE and its signaling pathways, Dr. Blobel was a driving force in establishing the knowledge foundation for SciRhom’s anti-iRhom2 antibodies and continues to guide the company’s scientific evolution.

Prof. Iain McInnes, Professor of Medicine and Vice Principal and Head of the College of Medical, Veterinary, and Life Sciences at the University of Glasgow. Dr. McInnes leads a research program investigating inflammatory synovitis in rheumatoid arthritis and is involved in multi-center clinical trials evaluating novel biologic agents in inflammatory arthritis. He is also actively engaged in several international rheumatology consortia.

Prof. Jane Salmon, Collette Kean Research Chair and Director of the Lupus and Antiphospholipid Syndrome Center of Excellence at the Hospital for Special Surgery and Professor of Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Dr. Salmon’s decades of clinical research have led to key insights into the causative role of inflammation in lupus-associated tissue damage and defined new treatment targets.

Prof. Georg Schett, Chair of the Department of Medicine III Rheumatology & Clinical Immunology and Vice President of Research at the Friedrich-Alexander University, Erlangen-Nuremberg. Dr. Schett is a globally renowned expert in rheumatology and serves as principal investigator on several research projects examining the molecular basis of immune-inflammatory diseases with rapid translation into clinical practice.

Prof. Michael Weinblatt, Co-Director of Clinical Rheumatology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and John R. Riedman Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Weinblatt has worked on the development of treatments for rheumatoid arthritis for over 40 years. He has evaluated numerous biologics used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and helped establish methotrexate as a standard of care.

About iRhom2

TACE (TNF-alpha converting enzyme or ADAM17) controls several major signaling pathways, including TNF-alpha, IL-6, and EGFR signaling. TACE has therefore been considered a potential target to block pro-inflammatory pathways, but direct inhibition of TACE causes severe side effects, such as skin and intestinal lesions. The recent discovery that iRhom2 (inactive Rhomboid 2, RHBDF2) simultaneously regulates the TACE-dependent release of TNF-alpha and of other pro-inflammatory molecules from immune cells provides the exciting opportunity to target the pro-inflammatory activities of TACE while preserving its protective functions. Furthermore, several recent studies suggest that iRhom2 is an attractive emerging target for a broad range of therapeutic areas, including immunology, inflammation, oncology, infectious and metabolic diseases.

About SciRhom GmbH

SciRhom GmbH, based in IZB Martinsried, Germany, is a biotech company that translates science into the preclinical and early clinical development of novel biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of life-threatening autoimmune diseases. Based on longstanding academic research and a well-established network of experts, SciRhom was founded in 2016 through a collaboration between academic and industry scientists with profound experience in antibody development. Since then, the company has developed first-in-class anti-iRhom2 antibodies and demonstrated efficacy in preclinical proof-of-principle studies. Four comprehensive patent families cover the anti-iRhom2 antibodies and iRhom2-target epitopes, securing exclusivity and protection against me-too drugs. To date, SciRhom has successfully acquired seed funding from the High-Tech Gruenderfonds (HTGF) and private investors.