Full Press Release Details
Laurence Reilly, M.D., LL.M Interim Chief Medical Officer
Successful track record of developing and
advancing oncology clinical programs through regulatory approval
November 2, 2021 - Cellectar Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: CLRB), a late-stage clinical biopharmaceutical company focused
on the discovery and development of targeted drugs for the treatment of cancer, today announced Laurence Reilly, M.D., LL.M as its interim
chief medical officer. Dr. Reilly will oversee the company's clinical development programs and report to Chief Executive Officer
James Caruso. He succeeds John Friend, MD, who is stepping down for personal reasons but will stay on through mid-November to finalize
the ongoing transition.
to welcome Laurence to our executive team and look forward to his leadership of our clinical development programs. His deep background
in hematological oncology and experience leading global clinical development teams to successfully bring new therapies to patients will
support Cellectar's next phase of growth. Laurence will be a tremendous asset as we execute our registrational trial for iopofosine
I-131 (iopofosine) in Waldenstrom's macroglobulinemia (WM) and continue to develop our hematologic cancer and pediatric solid tumor
programs as well as further advance our other pipeline assets," said James Caruso, president and CEO of Cellectar.
for his outstanding work and collaboration with the FDA that established a defined registrational pathway for iopofosine in WM, and for
securing the world-class global trial sites and thought leadership support critical for our pivotal WM study. We are now focused on executing
and completing our pivotal WM trial, enriching our Phase 2 CLOVER-1 trial with additional multiple myeloma patients, and enrolling in
our pediatric trial. Our balance sheet remains strong with sufficient capital to achieve our strategic goals into the second half of 2023,
and we look forward to continued execution across our programs."
Dr. Laurence Reilly has consulted for the company
since early this year. Prior to joining Cellectar, he provided strategic consulting and due-diligence services to biotech companies, life
science venture capital and private equity clients, alongside serving as chief strategy & development officer to a European-based
medical device company. Prior to founding his consulting practice, Dr. Reilly served as chief scientific officer and vice president at
Avillion, a drug development company focused on the co-development and financing of pharmaceutical candidates, where he was responsible
for clinical and strategic oversight of co-development programs and partnering with both large pharma and biotech, including Pfizer and
AstraZeneca. Dr. Reilly previously served as a clinician at Pfizer and began his industry career at Lundbeck where he served as medical
and scientific advisor overseeing investigator-initiated research, opinion leader interaction and new compound presentation. Dr. Reilly
earned his medical degree from the University of Liverpool Medical School, U.K., and a Masters Degree in Law from De Montfort University,
Dr. Reilly added, "I
am excited to join the Cellectar team and drive the clinical development and success of iopofosine. The data in WM and multiple myeloma
are extremely encouraging and with a defined registrational path, iopofosine is poised to become a meaningful treatment option for these
patients. I look forward to bringing iopofosine to market and continuing to develop the exciting pipeline of candidates from the PDC platform."
About Cellectar Biosciences, Inc.
Cellectar Biosciences
is focused on the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of cancer. The company is developing proprietary drugs independently
and through research and development collaborations. The company's core objective is to leverage its proprietary Phospholipid Drug
Conjugate (PDC) delivery platform to develop PDCs that specifically target cancer cells, delivering improved efficacy and better
safety as a result of fewer off-target effects. The company's PDC platform possesses the potential for the discovery and development
of the next-generation of cancer-targeting treatments, and it plans to develop PDCs independently and through research and development
The company's product
pipeline includes iopofosine, a small-molecule PDC designed to provide targeted delivery of iodine-131 (radioisotope), and proprietary
preclinical PDC chemotherapeutic programs and multiple partnered PDC assets. The company is currently investigating iopofosine in a global,
pivotal expansion cohort in relapsed or refractory WM patients who have received at least two prior lines of therapy, including those
who have failed or had a suboptimal response to Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitors. The WM cohort will enroll up to 50 patients to evaluate
the efficacy and safety of iopofosine for marketing approval. The company is also evaluating iopofosine in highly refractory multiple
myeloma patients in its Phase 2 CLOVER-1 study and relapsed/refractory pediatric cancer patients with sarcomas or brain tumors in the
Phase 1 CLOVER-2 study.
For more information,
please visit www.cellectar.com and www.wmclinicaltrial.com or join the conversation by liking and following us on the company's
social media channels: Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
Forward-Looking Statement Disclaimer
This news release contains
forward-looking statements. You can identify these statements by our use of words such as "may," "expect," "believe,"
"anticipate," "intend," "could," "estimate," "continue," "plans," or their
negatives or cognates. These statements are only estimates and predictions and are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties
that may cause actual future experience and results to differ materially from the statements made. These statements are based on our current
beliefs and expectations as to such future outcomes including our expectations of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drug discovery
and development involve a high degree of risk. Factors that might cause such a material difference include, among others, uncertainties
related to the ability to raise additional capital, uncertainties related to the disruptions at our sole source supplier of iopofosine,
the ability to attract and retain partners for our technologies, the identification of lead compounds, the successful preclinical development
thereof, patient enrollment and the completion of clinical studies, the FDA review process and other government regulation, our ability
to maintain orphan drug designation in the United States for iopofosine, the volatile market for priority review vouchers, our pharmaceutical
collaborators' ability to successfully develop and commercialize drug candidates, competition from other pharmaceutical companies, product
pricing and third-party reimbursement. A complete description of risks and uncertainties related to our business is contained in our periodic
reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission including our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020. These forward-looking
statements are made only as of the date hereof, and we disclaim any obligation to update any such forward-looking statements.