Aridis Names New Chief Medical Officer To Lead Development of CF Treatment of Pseudomonas Aeruginosa

Biopharmaceutical company Aridis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. has named Paul-Andre de Lame, MD as its new chief medical officer to help the company in their efforts to develop new anti-infective and immune therapies to treat infectious diseases. Aridis is currently developing a reactive monoclonal antibody drug called Aerucin, to treat Pseudomonas aeruginosa associated with cystic fibrosis.

Dr. de Lame was invited to join the company based on his experience as a care medical physician in the field of cardiovascular medicine and infectious diseases. During his career, de Lame contributed to the development of several products, such as vaccines, antibiotics and antifungals that helped change the way in which infectious diseases are treated.

“Dr. de Lame is the ideal strategic appointment to meet the demands of our robust pipeline that is currently in clinical testing,” said in a press release the founder and CEO of Aridis, Vu Truong, PhD. “He has lead innovative clinical trials and executed on successful streamlined clinical operations for a number of blockbuster drugs such as Renitec®/Vasotec® and Lipitor^®.  Aridis is delighted to have Dr. de Lame join our management team and leverage his extensive clinical development experience to advance our clinical pipeline toward commercialization.”

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Aerucin was designed to connect to the polysaccharide alginate, which is present on the surface of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, in order to adjunct the deposition and increase immune response. Aridis has initiated a phase 1 clinical trial to evaluate Aerucin after having demonstrated its capacity to regulate phagocytic activity in over 90% of all clinically isolated Pseudomonas aeruginosa tests. The single ascending dose safety and pharmacokinetics study, which is studying the treatment in healthy participants, is planned to be finished during the fourth quarter of this year.

“Aridis Pharmaceuticals is well-positioned to be a leader in the anti-infective immunotherapy space, an area of infectious disease treatment which I believe will be important to solving the longstanding challenge associated with antibiotic drug resistance,” added Lame. “I’m proud to join the company’s successful management team and look forward to aiding Aridis’ growth by furthering the development of its pipeline and expanding our assets for the significant medical needs Aridis is addressing.”

With a medical degree from the Universite Catholique de Louvain specialized in anesthesiology and intensive care, de Lame worked in an Intensive Care Unit in Brussels, Belgium prior to joining Merck. In addition, he founded the company Anabase International Corp., where he offered regulation and clinical research services to the biotech industry. De Lame also served as co-founder and chief medical officer at Cardiokine, Inc.