NEWTON, Mass., Aug. 10, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Auron Therapeutics, a platform-based, product-driven biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing novel cancer therapies using its AI-powered platform, today announced appointments to its board of directors and management team. Victoria Richon, Ph.D., was appointed to the company’s board of directors. Christopher Guiffre, J.D., MBA, was appointed president and chief operating officer.
“We are thrilled to welcome Vicky and Chris to the Auron team during this exciting time for the company,” said Kate Yen, Ph.D., founder and chief executive officer of Auron. “Vicky’s deep drug discovery background and expertise in oncology platform development make her an invaluable addition to our board and the expansion of our multi-omic, AI-powered platform. Chris’ extensive executive experience in public and private companies will be instrumental in driving our organizational growth. We look forward to working together to advance novel drug product candidates identified from our platform that target cancer cell plasticity, a common mechanism that leads to aggressive tumors and resistance to current oncology treatments.”
Victoria Richon, Ph.D., is chief executive officer of Entact Bio, which she helped launch in December 2022. Before joining Entact Bio, Dr. Richon held several executive leadership roles at Ribon Therapeutics, including president and chief executive officer and president and chief scientific officer, and she currently serves Ribon as a special R&D advisor. Before joining Ribon, Dr. Richon held roles as vice president and global head of oncology research and translational medicine at Sanofi, vice president of biological sciences at Epizyme, and founder and executive director of Aton Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Merck in 2004. Dr. Richon began her scientific career as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cell Biology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and is an author on more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and has participated in the discovery and development of multiple FDA-approved oncology treatments. Dr. Richon received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and a B.A. in Chemistry from the University of Vermont.
Christopher Guiffre, J.D., MBA, joins Auron from Pear Therapeutics where he served as chief financial officer and chief operating officer since 2017. Before joining Pear, he served as president and chief executive officer of Cerulean Pharma, and before that as Cerulean’s chief operating officer and chief business officer. Prior to Cerulean, Mr. Guiffre held a number of senior executive positions at various biopharmaceutical companies, including president and chief executive officer of Alvos Therapeutics, Inc., chief business officer at Hydra Biosciences, Inc., and senior vice president, general counsel and secretary at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Mr. Guiffre received a B.S. from Babson College, a J.D. from Boston College Law School, and an MBA from Boston College Carroll School of Management.
About Auron Therapeutics
Auron Therapeutics is a platform-based, product-driven biotechnology company focused on developing therapies that target cellular plasticity for solid tumor cancers and hematological malignancies. Auron has built a proprietary AI-powered platform that integrates large, multi-omic datasets to rapidly compare tumor tissue to normal tissues and enable a systems-biology understanding of the pathways that are associated with tumor plasticity, dysregulated differentiation, and treatment resistance. For more information, please visit www.aurontx.com.
