On July 8, 2025 Abdera Therapeutics Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging its advanced antibody engineering ROVEr platform to design and develop tunable precision radiopharmaceuticals for cancer, reported the appointment of Rachael Brake, Ph.D., as chief scientific officer (Press release, Abdera Therapeutics, JUL 8, 2025, View Source [SID1234654295]). Dr. Brake brings more than 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry building and leading cross functional teams across basic and applied research, clinical and business development.
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"We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Rachael Brake as our new chief scientific officer," said Lori Lyons-Williams, president and chief executive officer. "Rachael brings a distinguished career in oncology research and clinical development, with a proven ability to drive innovative scientific discoveries into impactful therapies for patients. Her deep expertise and leadership will be instrumental in maximizing the potential of our proprietary precision radiopharmaceutical platform."
"Abdera’s ROVEr platform stands at the forefront of radiopharmaceutical innovation in cancer treatment, empowering us to engineer targeted medicines with tunable PK properties, optimizing tumor uptake, circulation half-life and clearance rates. Collectively, the features of ROVEr will maximize the therapeutic index for this class of drugs and has the potential to transform how we consider delivering precision medicine," said Dr. Brake. "This is a truly transformative time for Abdera with clinical validation of ABD-147 emerging and ABD-320 expected to begin human clinical trials soon. I am energized to join this exceptional team and eager to shape the future of precision medicine with this new class of cancer therapy."
Dr. Brake joins Abdera from Zephyr AI where she served as chief scientific officer. Previously, Dr. Brake was the chief scientific officer at Corbus Pharmaceuticals where she built and led a research and development team and advanced multiple oncology programs into clinical development. Prior to her work at Corbus, Dr. Brake spent 11 years at Takeda Oncology, most recently as head of U.S. medical affairs, oncology business unit and as vice president, global program leader, oncology therapeutic area. In these roles, Dr. Brake managed a portfolio of programs and cross-functional teams responsible for the preclinical and clinical exploration of various solid tumor drug candidates spanning diverse mechanisms of action. Prior to joining Takeda, Dr. Brake was a research scientist at Amgen where she held increasing levels of responsibility culminating in the site lead in Cambridge, MA for the therapeutic innovation unit.
Dr. Brake began her career as a research scientist at the Western Australian Institute for Medical Research and Woden Valley Hospital. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology and biochemistry from the University of Western Australia.
About ABD-147
ABD-147 is a targeted radiopharmaceutical biologic therapy designed to deliver Actinium-225 (225Ac), a highly potent alpha-emitting radioisotope, to solid tumors expressing delta-like ligand 3 (DLL3) with high affinity. DLL3 is a protein in the Notch pathway that is critical for the development and regulation of neuroendocrine versus epithelial cell differentiation in the lungs. In certain high grade neuroendocrine carcinomas including small cell lung cancer (SCLC), DLL3 is upregulated and specifically expressed on the cell surface in more than 80% of cases. In contrast, DLL3 is absent or very rarely expressed on the surface of nonmalignant cells. Given the high specificity of DLL3 expression on cancer cells and the distinct mechanism of action, DLL3 represents a compelling target for treating SCLC and other DLL3+ solid tumors with targeted radiotherapy.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation to ABD-147 for the treatment of patients with extensive stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC) who have progressed on or after platinum-based chemotherapy and Orphan Drug Designation to ABD-147 for the treatment of neuroendocrine carcinoma. ABD-147 is currently being evaluated in a first-in-human Phase 1 clinical trial in patients with SCLC or large cell neuroendocrine carcinoma of the lung who have previously received platinum-based therapy.
About ABD-320
ABD-320 is a targeted radiopharmaceutical biologic therapy engineered to deliver Actinium-225 (225Ac) to solid tumors expressing 5T4. This oncofetal protein is rarely expressed in normal adult tissues but has been shown to be up-regulated in multiple cancer types, including colorectal, head and neck, non-small cell lung, pancreatic, gastric, mesothelioma, bladder, renal, cervical, ovarian, and breast cancers. By driving tumor cell migration and survival, 5T4 plays a key role in cancer progression and is associated with advanced disease, increased invasiveness, and poor clinical outcomes in solid tumors. ABD-320 was developed leveraging Abdera’s ROVEr platform and is custom-engineered to achieve an ideal balance of tumor uptake and retention while avoiding systemic radiotoxicities. Preclinical data with ABD-320 demonstrates potent anticancer activity. ABD-320 represents the first radiopharmaceutical therapy in development to address 5T4.