EpiVax, Inc. is proud to announce the appointment of Guilhem Richard as Chief Technology Officer. Dr. Richard joined EpiVax’s Immunoinformatics team in 2014 and led the development of a new computational platform for the development of personalized, neoantigen-based cancer vaccines: Ancer . He then led the implementation of this technology at EpiVax’s subsidiary EpiVax Therapeutics, Inc. from 2019 to 2024. Dr. Richard now leads innovation efforts at EpiVax and oversees the development of new and improved computational tools for immunogenicity assessment. He holds an M.Eng. in Bioinformatics and Modeling from the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA) in Lyon , France and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Boston University .
Dr. Richard’s promotion coincides with several key advancements in EpiVax’s technology and offerings. EpiVax is reporting significant updates that leverage advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques to integrate several of its key immunoinformatics assets into the company’s ISPRI platform. The updates will further enhance the capabilities of the leading platform for assessing immunogenicity risk for biologic therapeutics. The new models have enabled EpiVax researchers to refine the prediction of tolerated epitopes and improve both the precision and recall of their JanusMatrix model by 50%. Additionally, new immunogenicity models predicting the rate of anti-drug antibodies (ADA) against monoclonal therapeutics have resulted in a six-fold increase in the correlation between predicted and observed values over existing approaches, while reducing the rate of false negatives (low predicted immunogenicity/high observed immunogenicity) by 85%. These updated tools will be available on EpiVax’s ISPRI platform in the coming months , accessible on a SaaS and fee-for-service basis, and will improve the accuracy of results of a key evaluation step in the development process for global biotech and pharma customers and partners.
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In addition, EpiVax has submitted a new Model Master File (MMF) to the FDA for its PANDA in silico model to support regulatory submissions of Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) for generic peptide drug products. EpiVax’s PANDA MMF contains detailed descriptions of the models and methods used to evaluate the immunogenicity of peptide drug products and their impurities and can now be used as a Drug Master File (DMF) in ANDA applications to the FDA. The accessibility of EpiVax’s PANDA MMF represents an important step in simplifying the preparation and review of ANDAs. It allows sponsors to simplify their regulatory package and FDA reviewers to access detailed background and validation information on EpiVax’s immunogenicity models.
EpiVax remains committed to innovation and plans several enhancements to the ISPRI platform, including a new version of EpiMatrix to further enhance the toolkit’s forecasting capabilities. In addition, guided analytics features and an updated user interface for ISPRI will provide a more user-friendly experience and support our partners in strengthening their pipelines.
Source: PRNewswire