Shoreline Biosciences Strengthens Senior Management Team With Three Key Hires

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Jul 13, 2021, 08:00 ET

SAN DIEGO, July 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Shoreline Biosciences, Inc. (Shoreline), a biotechnology company developing intelligently designed allogeneic off-the-shelf, standardized, and targeted induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) derived natural killer (NK) and Macrophage cellular immunotherapies, today announced the appointments of Boyan Litchev, M.D. as Senior Vice President and Head of Global Clinical Development, Steven Neben, Ph.D. as Vice President, Alliance and Project Management, and Bjorn Dahle as Vice President, Smart Manufacturing.

"We are thrilled to welcome such quality individuals to the growing team of senior leaders at this pivotal time in Shoreline's development," said Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO. "Boyan, Steve and Bjorn bring a wealth of diverse expertise to Shoreline that will benefit us greatly as we advance our cell therapy candidates toward the clinic."

New Management Team Bios

Boyan Litchev, MD brings to the company more than two decades of global experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, with significant experience in the development of CAR-T, nucleotides (RNA), peptides, small molecules and gene therapies for various diseases.

Dr. Litchev joins Shoreline from Poseida Therapeutics, where he was Head of Clinical Development Oncology and was responsible for leading the company's CAR-T programs in solid tumors. Before that, he was Executive Medical Director, Head of Clinical Development Oncology for Halozyme Therapeutics, and Executive Medical Director, RNA-targeted therapies Clinical Development for Akcea Therapeutics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ionis. Prior to Akcea, Dr. Litchev worked at Takeda (formerly Shire) where he led clinical development programs in gene therapy and hematology. Dr. Litchev previously held roles of increasing responsibility at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Syneos Health (INC research), IQVIA (Quintiles) and University of California San Diego. Dr. Litchev is a board-certified physician in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Litchev received his MD degree from Medical University Plovdiv. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, he has treated patients and conducted clinical research.

Steven Neben, PhD has more than two decades of experience in project and alliance management in the biopharmaceutical industry at both small and large companies. Prior to joining Shoreline, Dr. Neben served as Executive Director, Project and Alliance Management for Regulus Therapeutics where he was responsible for the management of drug discovery and development partnerships with pharmaceutical partners and management of the research stage project portfolio of RNA therapeutic programs. Prior to Regulus, Dr. Neben was Senior Director, Project and Alliance Management at AnaptysBio, Director, Project and Alliance Management at Xoma and principal scientist at Bayer Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Neben holds a BA and PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Bjorn Dahle, MBA has extensive experience in various industries in advancing products through manufacturing to sales and marketing. Prior to joining Shoreline, Mr. Dahle was Co-founder and CEO of Inspire Solutions LLC, CEO of VersaCall Technologies and President of KIC, a technology company. Prior to that, he held key executive, global roles at St. Bernardo Software and MPM. Mr. Dahle holds an MBA in marketing from San Diego State University and a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

About Shoreline's iPSC NK cell and Macrophage Technology Platform

Shoreline has developed a proprietary platform focused on iPSC-derived natural killer (NK) cells and macrophages that are optimized with precise and rational genetic reprogramming. The Shoreline NK cell and macrophage-based cell therapies are designed to provide an effective and efficient means for targeting and killing tumors as well as repairing tissue homeostasis. Shoreline's approach, based on the advantage of its iPSC cell engineering and expansion, is being used to create a streamlined, affordable, and scalable manufacturing process that can deliver cell therapy treatments to patients in a more cost-effective, time-saving manner.

About Shoreline Biosciences

Shoreline is dedicated to creating next-generation cellular immunotherapies for cancer, inflammatory and genetic diseases that overcome the current limitations of first-generation cell therapy products. We are building a pipeline of natural killer (NK) cell and macrophage-cell therapy candidates derived from our deep expertise in iPSC differentiation methods and genetic reprogramming of disease relevant pathways. Shoreline has strategic partnerships with Kite, a Gilead Company, and BeiGene, a global biotechnology company, and is supported by high-quality institutional investors. Shoreline Biosciences is headquartered in San Diego, CA.

For more information, please visit https://shorelinebio.com/ and engage with us on LinkedIn.

SOURCE Shoreline Biosciences, Inc.