DISCO Pharmaceuticals appoints Ajla Hrle as Chief Business Officer
- Highly experienced business development leader with a track record of international deal-making will drive partnering activities, fundraising and corporate strategy
Cologne, Germany, 23 December 2024 – DISCO Pharmaceuticals (“DISCO”), the surfaceome drug discovery company, today announces the appointment of Ajla Hrle as Chief Business Officer (CBO), commencing 1st January 2025. In her role, Ajla will lead and oversee all aspects of partnering activities with external parties. She will also work closely with the management team to support and drive fundraising initiatives whilst simultaneously contributing to the development of corporate strategy.
Ajla Hrle has extensive experience in building life sciences companies, business development, sales and corporate strategy. Ajla was most recently head of Life Sciences at ATHOS KG, Struengmann Family Office where she managed the life science venture portfolio. Before joining ATHOS KG, Ajla was Vice President of Strategic Alliances at Immatics N.V. where she led a team in Business Development and Licensing Transactions. During her tenure she completed multiple licensing deals, resulting in an aggregate value of $440 million in upfront and in addition significant near-term and downstream economics. Ajla also established Immatics‘ Alliance Management Department, re-launched external Corporate Communications and contributed to a successful public listing. Prior to this, Ajla was at NanoTemper Technologies GmbH where she led business development and technical sales in Scandinavian markets of a transformative biophysical screening technology. Ajla earned her PhD in Biochemistry from the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in 2015 and is an Alumni of the Schering Foundation.
Roman Thomas, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of DISCO, said: “We are very pleased to welcome Ajla to the team. Since our seed financing early this year, we have expanded our team with highly experienced individuals and Ajla’s experience comes at a critical point as we move into the next stage of our business strategy.”
Ajla Hrle, newly appointed Chief Business Officer, DISCO commented: “DISCO’s innovative and distinguished approach is groundbreaking in addressing the unmet need for druggable target combinations in cancer treatment. DISCO’s dynamic and committed team is uniquely positioned to map the cancer cell surface and develop safe and efficacious drug candidates.”
Since its launch in January 2024, DISCO has utilised its surfaceome mapping platform to expand possible drug targets. DISCO’s proprietary drug discovery platform comprehensively maps the cell surface to identify proteins and associated neighbouring proteins, “protein communities”, providing target candidates for both mono- and bi-specific antibodies. In January 2024, DISCO completed the first ever surfaceome mapping of Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC), discovering several novel protein communities in SCLC and has since launched 3 programs in this cancer type. DISCO is currently mapping the cell surface protein communities of Microsatellite Stable (MSS) Colorectal Cancer.
ENDS
For further information, please contact:
Optimum Strategic Communications:
Mary Clark, Hana Malik, Vareen Outhonesack
+44 20 3922 0891
About DISCO Pharmaceuticals
DISCO Pharma employs a disruptive scalable technology to map the surfaceome of cancer cells and develop first-in-class cancer drugs. With the advent of new cell-surface, target-directed therapeutic modalities (including ADCs), it is critical to ramp up the discovery of meaningful targets. DISCO does so by comprehensively identifying druggable targets, as well as protein communities (i.e., different proteins that form nanoscale organizations on a cell), across the entire cancer cell surface at scale, thus uncovering crucial new information that neither genome nor transcriptome sequencing can provide. By knowing which proteins are truly present on the cell surface, and how they are associated within protein communities, DISCO can design highly specific binders, boosting expected efficacy and reducing side effects.
Leveraging this breakthrough technology and protein mapping knowledge, DISCO plans to develop its own pipeline of targeted therapies with an initial focus on Small Cell Lung Cancer – one of the deadliest human cancers with a high unmet medical need, where the Company and its Scientific Advisory Board have very deep expertise. DISCO is in the process of generating surfaceome data and mapping additional indications and aims to collaborate on targets through strategic partnerships.
DISCO has a highly experienced team with a strong track record in cancer drug discovery and entrepreneurial value creation, as well as a deep understanding of surface proteomics born out of ETH in Zurich and developed further within the Company. DISCO is backed by world leading life sciences investors including Sofinnova Partners, Panakes Partners, M Ventures and AbbVie Ventures.
