Kymab appoints Dr Sonia Quaratino as Chief Medical Officer

Dr Quaratino is an immunologist and joins Kymab from Novartis, where she has served as Global Clinical Program Leader – Transitional Clinical Oncology, responsible for the clinical development of proprietary therapeutic antibody programmes in immuno-oncology.

Prior to her role with Novartis, Dr Quaratino was Senior Medical Director and Immunology Advisor at Merck Serono, where she was responsible for the clinical development of various immunomodulators. Dr Quaratino also has over 20 years of professional experience in biomedical research in UK academic institutions including Imperial College London and the University of Southampton.

Dr Sonia Quaratino, newly appointed Chief Medical Officer of Kymab added: “Kymab’s emerging human antibody pipeline provides great potential to improve patient treatment options in our four main therapeutic areas of focus: immuno-oncology; auto-immunity; haematology and infectious disease. The Kymouse technology that underpins the company contains a full set of human immunoglobulin light and heavy chain genes that can produce 10 trillion different antibodies, thus significantly increasing the chances of finding new best-in-class antibodies. I am pleased and proud to be joining the Kymab team.”

“I am delighted to welcome Sonia to Kymab,” says Dr David Chiswell, CEO of Kymab, on the appointment. “With her demonstrated track record in clinical development and medical affairs, Sonia is a superb addition to Kymab‘s management team as we prepare for our first clinical trials. Sonia’s deep understanding of the global environment in clinical research complement those of Dr Arndt Schottelius, our new Executive VP of R&D who recently joined us from Morphosys. These two key appointments add a high calibre of depth and provide further validation to our burgeoning and advancing R&D pipeline.”

Dr Quaratino has an extensive professional background which includes a Medical Degree and a Doctorate in Hematology-Oncology from the University of Palermo, Italy and a PhD in Immunology from Imperial College London, UK.  For a number of years Sonia was a Professor of Immunology at the University of Southampton, a leading institution for innovative research. During her time in Southampton her focus was on the pathogenic mechanisms underlying chronic inflammatory diseases and the interface between autoimmunity and cancer.