Octant, a company focused on developing disease-modifying therapies for protein misfolding diseases, announced a number of senior appointments: Rebecca Velez Frey (Board of Directors), Christopher Sinz (VP Chemistry), Matthew Albert (VP Translational Science and Early Clinical Development), and Wen-Chen Yeh (VP Biology). As Octant’s Navigator Platform is developing small molecule correctors to treat causal pathways of protein misfolding, each of these executives contributes key drug discovery and development experience across business, science, and medicine to advance these programs towards the clinic.
Dr. Velez Frey is the newest member of Octant’s Board of Directors. She currently serves as President and CEO of Siduma Therapeutics and as a board member of Halda Therapeutics. She has also held key leadership roles at EvolveImmune Therapeutics, Cardurion Pharmaceuticals and Prevail Therapeutics. Prior to these roles, she spent many years working in operations, program/portfolio management, medical affairs, drug development, and manufacturing at Alexion Pharmaceuticals and Novartis Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Velez Frey commented: “Octant has built a transformative discovery platform that can overcome many challenges associated with traditional small molecule discovery. They are harnessing the power of synthetic biology and high throughput chemistry and computation to generate exciting therapeutic leads for complex biological pathways. I am thrilled to be partnering with this incredibly talented team and board to advance Octant’s mission.”
Dr. Sinz joins Octant as its first VP of Chemistry, responsible for the high throughput chemistry platform and medicinal and computational chemistry efforts. Dr. Sinz’s expertise across platform, medicinal, structural, and computational chemistry approaches matches well with Octant’s ability to discover and develop small molecules using human cell systems. Prior to Octant, Dr. Sinz was VP of Chemistry and Molecular Sciences at Maze Therapeutics. Preceding Maze, he spent more than 15 years at Merck, most recently as a Director of Discovery Chemistry at the South San Francisco site.
Dr. Sinz commented: "I'm thrilled to join a remarkably talented and highly motivated team of scientists at Octant. Octant has a culture of learning and growth - I've learned a lot in my first few weeks as an Octonaut and I've enjoyed conversations with colleagues eager to discuss my perspectives and experience. The team has demonstrated that our platform has powerful applications to many areas of unmet medical need, and we're excited to advance these discoveries to patients."
In his capacity as VP of Translational Sciences and Early Development at Octant, Dr. Albert is tasked with steering the translational and early development aspects of the organization's programs as they progress toward clinical trials. His responsibilities also include leveraging Octant's Navigator platform for genomics-driven clinical trial design.
As a physician-scientist, Dr. Albert draws on his expertise in genetics to inform the organization's approach to precision medicine for diseases related to misfolding and mistrafficking. Dr. Albert’s career includes his recent position as the Chief Translational Officer at Human Immunology Biosciences and prior service as the Senior Vice President of Biology and Translational Genetics at Insitro. His industry experience spans roles at Genentech, where he contributed to advancing patient care, as well as academic leadership as the Director of the Department of Immunology at the Institut Pasteur. Additionally, Dr. Albert has made significant contributions to medicine as a clinical pathologist.
Dr. Albert commented: “I am delighted to join Octant because of its pioneering approach to drug development, leveraging cellular intelligence and high-throughput technologies. The collaborative spirit and the team’s shared commitment to making a real impact in patients’ lives resonates deeply with me. I’m particularly excited about advancing the current programs through regulatory processes and into clinical proof-of-mechanism and proof-of-concept studies, confident that our corrector therapeutics will significantly benefit patients with genetic diseases. The prospect of being part of this meaningful journey is incredibly motivating and aligns with my passion for finding the right patients for the drugs we have.”
Dr. Yeh is Octant’s first VP of Biology. With nearly three decades in biotech research and development, Dr. Yeh will collaborate closely with the chemistry team to oversee Octant’s internal drug programs from early discovery through IND-enabling studies across several therapeutic areas.
Dr. Yeh’s most recent position was Chief Scientific Officer at Surrozen, a pioneering company in the field of regenerative medicine, where he contributed to the development of groundbreaking platforms using targeted antibodies to selectively activate the Wnt pathway. He previously served as a Scientific Executive Director at Amgen, leading research teams to create new therapies for heart disease, diabetes, dyslipidemia, and inflammation and contributing to the advancement of several drug programs to clinical trials.
Before joining Amgen, Dr. Yeh led a productive research lab at the University of Toronto, where he focused on immunology and inflammatory signaling mechanisms. His medical background includes residency in internal medicine at Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei and a medical internship at the National Taiwan University Hospital.
Dr. Yeh commented: “Octant has a very talented, dynamic and collaborative team. There have been a lot of heroes at Octant who created the super powerful platforms that facilitate drug discovery, identified targets that can serve patients of unmet need, and executed programs to the mature stage. I am excited to join Octant at this time. I look forward to contributing to delivery of lead candidate molecules and helping with career growth and development of the talented team.”
Octant is a next generation therapeutics company developing small molecule drugs to treat serious diseases of protein misfolding. Octant’s Navigator platform integrates high throughput synthetic biology and chemistry to screen directly in large-scale cellular systems, engineering drug candidates that modulate causal disease mechanisms in their native context. Their pipeline focuses on small-molecule correctors of protein misfolding in monogenic diseases, oncology, and immunology. For more information visit www.octant.bio.