Alpine Immune Sciences Names Dr. Stanford Peng Executive Vice President And Chief Medical Officer

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Alpine Immune Sciences, Inc. (AIS), a privately held biotechnology company developing a next-generation immune system modulation platform, today announced the appointment of Stanford Peng, M.D., Ph.D., as executive vice president and chief medical officer. In this role, Dr. Peng will bring his extensive experience in immunology, rheumatology and oncology drug development to lead AIS’ development of protein-based immunotherapies targeting the immune synapse to treat cancer, autoimmune disorders and other serious diseases. He will be responsible for the strategy and execution of AIS’s first in class vIgD immune-modulatory programs.

“Dr. Peng is a proven clinical development executive with a track record of success in developing innovative drugs and taking them through FDA and EMA approval”

“Dr. Peng is a proven clinical development executive with a track record of success in developing innovative drugs and taking them through FDA and EMA approval,” said Mitchell H, Gold, M.D., executive chairman and acting chief executive officer of AIS. “His clinical background and considerable expertise in the development of novel therapeutics will be a significant asset as we work to engineer and develop the next generation of cancer and autoimmune therapeutics with our vIgD™ platform."

Dr. Peng has more than 16 years of clinical and basic biomedical research experience in multiple settings, including large pharma, startups, biotech, and clinical practice. Prior to joining AIS, he was chief medical officer and head of clinical development at StemCentrx, where he provided strategic oversight of the company’s clinical and translational programs prior to its acquisition by AbbVie. Before that, he served as executive medical director and head of inflammation and translational medicine at Seattle Genetics, where he developed and executed translational, oncology and immunology strategies and programs for antibody-drug conjugates. Prior to that, he was head of the Rheumatology Clinical Research Unit and clinical associate member at the Benaroya Research Institute in Seattle, where he was the director of autoimmunity-related clinical trials and translational research. Earlier in his career Dr. Peng held senior positions at ARYx Therapeutics and several positions at Roche, most recently as the translational medical leader of the Inflammation Disease Biology Area.

Dr. Peng has previously held clinical positions as a member physician at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, and as an assistant professor in the Division of Rheumatology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri.

Dr. Peng received his M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine and a Ph.D. in biology from Yale University. He completed his residency in internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, followed by a clinical and research fellowship in rheumatology at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

About Alpine Immune Sciences

Alpine Immune Sciences (AIS) was founded in 2015 and is focused on developing novel protein-based immunotherapies using its proprietary variant immunoglobulin domain (vIgD™) platform technology. The vIgD™ platform, unlike other therapeutic approaches in development or available commercially, is designed to interact with multiple targets simultaneously in the immune synapse using a single molecule. AIS’ vIgDs™ are developed using a unique process known as directed evolution to leverage the naturally occurring ligands immune cells use to communicate. AIS has developed its vIgD™ platform to either enhance or diminish an immune response, making the vIgD™ technology applicable for both cancer indications as well as for autoimmune diseases. AIS has also developed its transmembrane immunomodulatory protein (TIP™) technology, based on the vIgD™ platform, for direct applications with engineered cellular therapies, potentially improving their efficacy and persistence. In October of 2015, AIS signed a worldwide research and license agreement with Kite Pharma, Inc. for up to $530 million allowing Kite access to certain targets developed using the AIS TIP™ platform. Alpine closed its Series A round of $48 million in June of 2016. For more information visit www.alpineimmunesciences.com/.