Valo Therapeutics Announces Board Appointment of Dr Mai-Britt Zocca

Dr Zocca is a biotech entrepreneur, founder and co-founder of several biotech spin-outs, and an expert in the development of immunotherapies for cancer

OXFORD, England and HELSINKI, June 8, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Valo Therapeutics Limited (Valo Tx), an immuno-oncology company developing tumour antigen-coated oncolytic viruses as therapeutic vaccines, today announced it had appointed to its Board biotech entrepreneur, and immunotherapy developer, Dr Mai-Britt Zocca.

Mai-Britt Zocca, PhD, is Founder and CEO of IO Biotech. She has participated in the founding and co-founding of several biotech companies. Dr Zocca has almost two decades of experience in biotech, focusing on translational and clinical immuno- oncology with the development of immunotherapies for cancer diseases. She is a member of the Board of Directors of DANSK BIOTEK and has held several executive positions in the industry. Dr Zocca holds a PhD in tumour immunology and an MSc in Biochemistry. She received her PhD from the Institute of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Copenhagen, and the NIH, National Cancer Institute (NCI), Bethesda, Maryland, USA.

Dr Michael Stein, CEO of Valo Tx, commented, "We're delighted to have Mai-Britt join our Board, with her wealth of expertise as a biotech entrepreneur and immunotherapy developer. This appointment will support the progress of our lead oncolytic adenovirus into clinical trials in Q1 2021."

Dr Mai-Britt Zocca said, "I've been admiring Valo's approach to developing immunotherapies for cancer and am relishing the opportunity as a Board member to help expedite the exceptional science of Valo's platform into effective treatments for patients with cancer."

About Valo Tx

Valo Therapeutics (Helsinki and Oxford) is an immunotherapy company that is developing antigen-coated oncolytic viruses as anti-cancer therapeutic vaccines. The Valo Tx platform, PeptiCRAd (Peptide-coated Conditionally Replicating Adenovirus), was developed out of the laboratory of Professor Vincenzo Cerullo at the University of Helsinki. It turns oncolytic adenoviruses into targeted tissue specific cancer vaccines without the need to generate and manufacture multiple genetically modified viruses. The company is also developing PeptiENV, among other neoantigen strategies, in collaboration with Professor Cerullo. PeptiENV is expected to improve the therapeutic response to enveloped oncolytic viruses in the treatment of multiple forms of cancer. A film explaining the PeptiCRAd technology can be found here.

Contacts

Valo Therapeutics
Matthew Vaughan
Email: matthew.vaughan@valotx.com

Scius Communications
Katja Stout
katja@sciuscommunications.com