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Citryll Appoints CTO and CSO
Oss, The Netherlands, May 21, 2021 — Driven by a growing list of applications and opportunities and the evolution of the company, the time is right to expand the Citryll Management Team and Citryll today announces it has appointed Eric Meldrum as Chief Scientific Officer and that current CSO and co-founder Renato Chirivi will transition into the role of Chief Technology Officer. Eric and Renato will provide leadership and direction to Citryll’s scientific and corporate strategy to develop its anti-citrullinated mAb assets and technology. Both will work with Patrick Round Citryll’s Chief Medical Officer on expansion of the therapeutic utilities of CIT-013, its clinical development candidate and derivatives. Eric and Renato will report to Helmuth van Es, CEO, and serve on the Management Team.
Eric Meldrum
Eric Meldrum has 12 years of drug discovery experience at GSK in Switzerland and the UK. Until 2005 he was head of the Asthma and Rhinitis Disease Biology Department responsible for drug development up to Phase 2 proof of concept. Since then, Eric has been active as CSO in several biotech companies and brings Citryll a depth of experience in translational approaches to prioritise therapeutic opportunities and the strategic considerations behind successfully enhancing asset value and progression to clinical proof of concept. He was most recently CSO at ENYO Pharma, a French biotech currently in Phase 2 in Chronic Hepatitis B and NASH.
Renato Chirivi
Renato Chirivi is co-founder of Citryll and previously CSO. He has been central, with CEO Helmuth van Es in bringing Citryll to its current clinical develpment status. He is the co-inventor of therapeutic anti-citrullinated protein antibodies (tACPA), antagonists of NET biology, and an expert on antibody discovery, engineering, production, and protein citrullination. He has numerous years of experience in cancer, neurobiology and molecular immunology which he gained at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Italy, The Scripps research institute in California, USA, the Nijmegen Center for Molecular Life Sciences, and ModiQuest BV, the Netherlands.
“I would like to thank Renato for his incredible drive and passion pushing forward the programme and his resilience and support during Citryll’s fundraising activities. Good luck in the new role!” and “We warmly welcome Eric to the management team and are pleased to have him join the management team. His proven strategic vision, scientific insight and proven leadership, as well as his drug discovery experience in a broad range of human diseases, will strengthen our (pre-)clinical development efforts and support the progress of Citryll’s development programmes.”, said CEO and executive board member Helmuth van Es. “Citryll is a leader and pioneer in the NETosis space with a first-in-class therapeutic antibody in clinical development. The potential for tACPAs to make a difference for patients with unmet medical need is huge, extending beyond autoimmune diseases. “I am excited to join the team at Citryll”, said Eric Meldrum.
In June 2020 Citryll closed a series A fundraise of € 18,5 M/ $21 M in total with Seventure and Biogeneration Ventures as new investors and support of earlier investors BOM Brabant Ventures, Brightgene, ModiQuest, Curie capital as well as significant financial support from the Dutch Governement at RVO.nl. Citryll is developing its antagonist of NET biology for autoimmune and non-autoimmune conditions where NET biology contributes to pathology and disease progression.
About Citryll
Citryll B.V. is a private pharmaceutical company based in Oss, the Netherlands at the Pivot Park and that is dedicated to the development and commercialization of therapeutics that target NETosis and NETs. Citryll was founded in 2015 by Modiquest B.V., originator of the tACPA patents, Helmuth van Es, CEO Citryll, and Renato Chirivi of Modiquest B.V., CSO Citryll and co-inventor of tACPA.