Christian Leisner

CEO & Director of CDR-Life - Leadership Excellence in Biotechnology

Profile

Christian is a seasoned drug developer. He has worked in all phases of drug development within the areas of ophthalmology, oncology, autoimmunity, cardiovascular disease. Christian has led several global programs with new biologic entities including LME636 (Novartis) from the preclinical stage up through successful Phase 2 in two different ophthalmic diseases. He has also played lead roles in the clinical development of Rydapt (Approved in rare hematological disease) and brolucizumab (positive Phase 3 in retinal disease).

Christian has served in Business Development & Licensing teams in Alcon and Novartis and was part of the senior management in ESBATech.

He obtained his Ph.D. in biochemistry from ETH Zurich, Switzerland. In addition, he holds a Master of Science in Molecular Biology and in Chemistry from Roskilde University, Denmark.

FIRM PROFILE

CDR-Life was founded in 2017 by a seasoned team of drug developers and biotech entrepreneurs with a mission to develop a next generation of superior T cell engaging therapies against solid and liquid tumors. We have built a team of highly accomplished people with broad expertise in antibody discovery, pharmacology, clinical and drug product development, enabling us to break new ground with our growing portfolio of highly tumor-selective immunotherapies.
CDR-Life is developing highly specific antibody therapeutics to target intracellular proteins presented on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). Our versatile MHC-targeted antibody platform increases access to a vast array of antigens that were not previously addressable, to develop a pipeline of first-in-class therapeutics across a broad range of solid tumors. With a team of proven drug development experts and backed by leading cross-Atlantic investors, we are working to redirect and activate the patient’s own immune system to eliminate their tumors.

Our Science
Over the past decades, the emergence of immunotherapies has changed the game in cancer treatment. However, to date, immunotherapies have only shown efficacy in certain patient populations and suffer from a high degree of off-tumor activity due to lack of tumor selectivity. This severely compromises the efficacy and safety of these promising therapies.

CDR-Life is developing new immunotherapies that target antigens restricted to tumor cells, thereby solving the problem of non-tumor selectivity that is hindering existing treatments from achieving full therapeutic potential. Based on more than 20 years of expertise in cutting-edge antibody fragment design, engineering and production, we have developed a new antibody-based approach that specifically attacks the unique cancer protein targets existing inside tumor cells.

This is achieved by antibodies binding to peptides from tumor antigens on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) with very high specificity. The MHC traffics proteins to the immune system and provides access to a new class of intracellular tumor antigens to engage T cells. Combined with our proprietary multi-specific format, we are developing truly tumor-specific and -eradicating T cell engagers.

THE M-GAGER PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY
The M-gager platform is our proprietary technology that develops highly specific and effective peptide-MHC (pMHC)-targeting T cell engagers.

Based on a unique phage display library with a repertoire of billions of antibodies already binding to the pMHC of interest, the MHC-targeting T cell engager (M-gager) format result in effective and selective recruitment of T cells and generates a specific cytotoxic T cell response against the cancer cell. M-gager molecules are expected to be highly effective immunotherapies for challenging yet very attractive targets such as neoantigens and cancer testis antigens (CTA), providing minimal off-tumor activity.

M-gager molecules have excellent drug properties and are well-producible in standard mammalian cell-based manufacturing.