23 February 2023 - - Netherlands-based preclinical-stage biotechnology company Cleara Biotech B.V. has appointed immunotherapy and oncology expert Dr. Nicholas J. Sarlis as the company's Chief Medical Officer and Head of Clinical Development, the company said.

Dr. Sarlis brings more than 25 years of clinical and pharmaceutical/biotechnology experience to his position at Cleara, including leading multidisciplinary teams to advance early to late-stage clinical development programs in the biotechnology industry as well as approved drugs.

Dr. Sarlis has managed the medical strategy supporting the launch of 6 globally marketed products, investigated 20 pipeline agents progressing 11 of them along their clinical development path and lifecycle and has participated as a site investigator in 38 studies and 2 registries.

He is an experienced clinician, senior medical researcher and recognized pharmaceutical and biotech industry leader.

Until recently, Dr. Sarlis led the Medical Content function within Amplity Health.

Prior to that, and in reverse succession, Dr. Sarlis served as CMO of The Lynx Group and CMO of Sellas Life Sciences Group, Inc., where he led the clinical development of two peptide-based cancer vaccines.

Before that, Dr. Sarlis served as Head of Medical Affairs at Incyte Corp. and held positions of increasing seniority at Sanofi, both in the US and France.

Prior to his industry positions, he was a clinical faculty member at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the US National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Sarlis obtained his Doctor of Medicine and DrMedSci degrees from the University of Athens, Greece, and a PhD from Imperial College, University of London.

Dr. Sarlis is certified by the American board of Internal Medicine and the National board of Physicians and Surgeons and is an elected Fellow of the American College of Physicians and the Royal Society of Medicine. Dr. Sarlis has published 135 articles and textbook chapters.

Cleara is a biopharmaceutical preclinical-stage company, spun out from University Medical Center Utrecht, focused on developing therapies for treating different types of "senescent" cells.

Cleara's expertise lies in understanding the molecular and biological pathways that underlie these pathological phenotypes to exploit their weak spots for safe and selective clearance.

Cleara's lead program is focused on eliminating "scarred" cells, i.e., irreparably damaged cells hallmarked by the binding of the guardian proteins FOXO4 and p53, the latter of which is in a specifically modified form different from healthy cells.

This subtype of senescence is particularly deleterious as it is metabolically active and disrupts neighboring cells.

Using the native FOXO4 3D structure, Cleara optimized CL04183 specifically around binding modified p53.

In doing so, CL04183 potently and selectively eliminates scarred cells with striking efficacy against metastases.

Having both favorable tissue distribution and long-term safety profile, Cleara is gearing up for clinical translation of scarred metastatic cancer.

Cleara is a platform-based company that utilizes knowledge against senescence subtypes and develops compounds to eliminate these in respective diseases.