AvantGen Appoints Chief Business Officer

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- AvantGen, Inc., a biotechnology company with its array of technology platforms for antibody discovery, optimization, and novel NK cell engager generation, today announced Mark F. Kubik has joined AvantGen as Chief Business Officer (CBO). Mark will lead AvantGen’s business development team, developing and managing new business opportunities and strategic partnerships in therapeutic antibody development based on AvantGen’s cutting-edge platforms.

Mark has over 25 years of experience in business development, alliance and portfolio management and drug discovery and development. The bulk of this work has focused around successfully leading transformative deal creation and productive alliances in the therapeutic monoclonal antibody (mAb) and empowered antibody areas. Most recently, Mark served as CBO at Invenra where he headed its business development function and was responsible for securing multiple mAb discovery and development partnerships and providing strategic guidance. Prior to Invenra, Mark held positions in business development and led transformative and award-winning deal making at Abgenix, Protein Design Labs, XOMA, Seattle Genetics, MacroGenics, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, and i2 Pharmaceuticals / Velocity Sciences, among others. Deal highlights include a global co-development agreement on behalf of Abgenix (now Amgen) with Immunex for Vectibix® (panitumumab), an ex-US strategic alliance on behalf of Seattle Genetics with Takeda for Adcetris® (brentuximab vedotin) (nominated by Recombinant Capital / Allicense for consideration as 2009 “Alliance of the Year”) and a multi-program bispecific discovery collaboration on behalf of MacroGenics with Gilead (won Licensing Executives Society Alliance of the Year in Life Sciences Award in 2013).

“We are excited to have Mark join AvantGen’s executive team. Mark has extensive experience in business development, alliance, portfolio management, antibody drug discovery and development, and an outstanding track record of closing breakthrough deals in the antibody therapeutics field. In addition, Mark possesses a considerable depth of knowledge of antibody and empowered-antibody therapeutics, making him an ideal leader for AvantGen to expand its business growth,” said Xiaomin Fan, Ph.D., Founder, President and CEO of AvantGen.

“I am excited for this opportunity and look forward to working with the AvantGen team, as we seek to optimize the value of the Company’s unique and proprietary suite of transformative technologies and assets,” said Mark Kubik. “The breadth of AvantGen’s cutting-edge discovery technologies allows me to utilize my antibody experience to craft value creating partnerships for our company and our partners across multiple modalities in the therapeutic antibody arena.”

Mark received his MBA in Finance from the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado-Boulder and his BA (cum laude) in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (MCDB) from CU-Boulder.

About AvantGen

AvantGen, Inc is a leader in the use of yeast display technology for antibody discovery and optimization. Founded by experts in the creation of antibody discovery and optimization platforms, AvantGen excels in the rapid generation of antibodies for therapeutic, diagnostic and research tool applications. The Company’s platforms include a robust yeast display system, large natural human antibody database, fully human antibody libraries comprised of over 100 billion antibody clones, NK cell engager technology, flow cytometry-based and other screening technologies, as well as novel methodologies for rabbit monoclonal antibody generation. These versatile platforms can be used to discover and optimize antibodies directed at specific disease targets, affinity mature existing antibodies to improve their binding properties and humanize antibodies to render non-human antibodies suitable for human therapeutic applications, as well as generate rabbit monoclonal antibodies for applications that need extremely high specificity, such as antibodies capable of distinguishing point mutations and post-translational modifications for IHC, and anti-idiotype antibodies for PK studies. AvantGen’s partners include pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostic and government entities, many of which are repeat customers. For more information, visit www.avantgen.com.

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