4-Antibody appoints ceo and new board member

To develop more partnerships with corporate pharma

Swiss antibody specialist 4-Antibody has appointed Robert Burns as chief executive and Thomas von Rüden to its board of directors.

Burns has previously held senior positions in the antibody area as ceo of Oslo, Norway-based Affitech and Celldex Therapeutics in the US.

Max Burger, 4-Antibody’s chairman, said Burns is a deal-maker and has the experience to drive 4-Antibody forward to achieve additional multi-target collaborations with corporate pharma to add to the partnership recently put in place with Boehringer Ingelheim.

Von Rüden was formerly ceo at Direvo Industrial Biotechnology in Cologne, Germany. Prior to this, he was chairman of Direvo’s Advisory Board and worked as president and ceo at Direvo Biotech until Bayer Schering acquired the company in September 2008.

Von Rüden also spent six years as cso and executive VP of Business Development with MorphoSys in Munich. Before that he was director of Molecular Biology responsible for drug discovery in oncology at Boehringer Ingelheim in Vienna.

‘We expect Thomas’s knowledge of key trends in pharma antibody discovery and development to add incremental momentum to our pursuit of new corporate partnerships as well as our internal drug discovery and development programmes,’ said Burns.

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