Bluejay Therapeutics expands management team and hired Christopher Holterhoff as senior Vice President, head of business development

SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept. 21, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Bluejay Therapeutics, Inc. a private clinical stage biopharmaceutical company focused on viral and liver diseases, today announced the appointment of Christopher Holterhoff as Senior Vice President, Head of Business Development. Mr. Holterhoff will lead Bluejay’s business and corporate development function and will play a significant role in Bluejay’s corporate strategy and strategic planning activities. He will be a member of Bluejay’s Executive team, reporting to Keting Chu, Founder and CEO of Bluejay Therapeutics.

“I am delighted to welcome Chris to the senior leadership team at Bluejay”, stated Mrs. Chu. “Chris has an outstanding track record in business & corporate development with both public and private biotech and pharma companies. His business development experience, as well as his strategic aptitude will play a critical role as we execute on our vision of building a leading biotechnology company focused on curative treatments for serious viral and liver diseases.”

“Bluejay is extremely well-positioned with a pipeline of first-in-class or best-in-class treatment options addressing serious and highly prevalent viral and liver diseases where there exists substantial unmet medical need. I am thrilled to join the organization at such a pivotal time in its development, and I look forward to working with Bluejay’s exceptional team and leveraging my experience in business development to advance the company’s promising pipeline toward approval for patients who are in dire need of new treatment options.”

Mr. Holterhoff has nearly two decades of diverse experience encompassing business & corporate development, corporate finance & strategy, and capital markets.

Before joining Bluejay, he served as VP, Business & Corporate development at LEXEO Therapeutics, where he led all business development, strategic transactions and played a significant role in the company’s capital raising activities. Prior to LEXEO, Mr. Holterhoff served as executive director of business development at Amicus Therapeutics where he executed on new strategic business opportunities for Amicus’ gene therapy pipeline, including license agreements, M&A transactions, and R&D collaborations, and led the alliance management function. Earlier in his career, he worked in healthcare investment banking at MTS Health Partners, where he advised public and private biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies on strategic buy and sell side transactions and financings and served as a senior publishing equity research analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., providing coverage of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.

Mr. Holterhoff holds an MBA from Columbia University, MS in Biotechnology from Georgetown University, and BS from Providence College.

Mr. Holterhoff joins a seasoned executive leadership team, including:

Keting Chu, M.D., Ph.D., founder and chief executive officer, was previously a partner at LYFE Capital and venture partner at Apple Tree Partners, and was responsible for venture philanthropy at The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Dr. Chu was also the CEO of several companies, including Mission Therapeutics, DigitAB, and BioCubed Corporation. Earlier in her career, she held R&D leadership roles at Five Prime Therapeutics and Chiron Corporation.

Hassan Javanbakht, Ph.D., chief scientific officer, was previously at Hoffman La-Roche, Gilead sciences and SQZ biotechnologies where he worked on developing novel antivirals and immunomodulators to treat HIV, HBV, influenza and other infectious diseases. He was part of the team that advanced Elipida® (RO4970335), a potent and highly selective NNRTI, into clinical development . He led the teams that developed a first-in-class small-molecule viral expression inhibitor (RG7834) and a liver-targeted anti-HBV locked nucleic acid (RG6004). His work also led to discovery of PAPD5/7 as host factors for HBV expression. He has authored more than 45 peer-reviewed scientific publications in high-impact journals and holds more than 11 issued patents and applications.

Nancy Shulman, M.D., CMO, has over 20 years of clinical development experience including at Roche, Genentech, AbbVie, and most recently at Ambys Medicines, where she was the vice president of translational medicine. She brings broad clinical development experience ranging from first-in-human and translational studies through Phase 4 studies, including extensive experience in the virology/hepatology disease area, but also in immunology and oncology. She has been a part of multiple INDs and was a key leader on the NDA approvals of the HCV antivirals Viekira Pak®, Viekirax®, and Mavyret®.

Kevin Lin, M.D., vice president of development, has over 30 years of experience in the biotechnology industry in the areas of process development, technology transfer, scale up, troubleshooting, GMP manufacturing, and CMC regulatory submission. He has worked at several biotech companies, such as Bayer Healthcare, Catalant, Avid Bioservices, ImmunityBio, and Kindred Biosciences.

Jeff Zablocki, Ph.D., vice president of chemistry, has led chemistry teams at AbbVie, Gilead, CV Therapeutics, Amgen, and Searle. Dr. Zablocki has discovered 15 development compounds including 3 approved agents: Lexiscan™ – an adenosine A2A agonist used in over 60 million patients as a pharmacological stress agent capturing a large market share; Ranexa™ for stable angina; and Voxilaprevir™ for Hepatitis C where he helped address pre-clinical metabolism challenges by applying novel medicinal chemistry approaches.

About Bluejay Therapeutics

Bluejay Therapeutics is a clinical stage private biopharmaceutical company committed to developing effective treatments and cures for viral and liver diseases (www.bluejaytx.com). Its initial target indications are CHB and CHD, diseases that have a global prevalence and an urgent need for improved medical solutions. Bluejay is advancing two potential therapeutic approaches: best-in-class fully human IgG1 anti-HBs monoclonal antibodies and orally liver-targeted HBV transcript inhibitors. The company has developed a platform for liver-directed drug targeting, with potential applications to multiple therapeutic agents. For more information on potential collaborations with Bluejay Therapeutics regarding partnering opportunities or preclinical or clinical research programs, please contact us at info@bluejaytx.com.