Aurobac Therapeutics, founded by Boehringer Ingelheim, bioMerieux and Evotec, reported the creation of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and the appointment of its members. Comprised of distinguished experts in preclinical and clinical drug development, diagnostics, and infectious diseases, the company said, the SAB will provide scientific and medical expertise as well as strategic guidance to support AUROBAC's R&D strategy and to help advance its first products to clinical trials. The SAB duties will also include program execution considerations in the framework of innovation, clinical and market dynamics.

According to a release, the newly formed SAB will be chaired by Dr. Marco Taglietti, who is also an Independent Member of AUROBAC's Board, and consists of: Sujata M. Bhavnani, PharmD, M.S., is a distinguished pharmacokinetics-pharmacodynamics expert for antimicrobial agents. Her work has supported decisions for dose selection and interpretive criteria for the in vitro susceptibility testing for numerous new drug applications. She is the Executive Vice-President of Translational Medicine for ICPD (Institute for Clinical Pharmacodynamics).

She received her Pharm.D. from the Albany College of Pharmacy, completed a two-year post doctorial fellowship in infectious diseases and pharmacokinetics at Millard Fillmore Hospital, and her M.S. in biometry from the University at Buffalo. Mark Miller, MD, is a renowned medical clinician, microbiologist and clinical researcher with expertise in infectious disease and epidemiology. Until recently, he was Chief Medical Officer, Executive Vice-President and was on the Executive Management Committee at bioMerieux for 11 years (2012 - 2024).

Prior to bioMerieux, he was Head of Infectious Diseases, Chief of Clinical Microbiology, and Chair of Infection Prevention and Control at the Jewish General Hospital (Montreal, Canada) for over 25 years, until 2012. He received his MD with further specialization in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology and his M.Sc. in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from McGill University (Montreal, Canada) where he was appointed a Full Professor of Medicine in 2012.

Manu Shankar-Hari, MD, Ph.D., M.Sc., is a clinician scientist with an outstanding expertise in translational research and immunology of sepsis. Currently, he holds the Personal Chair of Translational Critical Care Medicine at the Institute for Regeneration and Repair (University of Edinburgh). He leads a globally unique precision medicine program for critically ill adults to enable targeted immunomodulation (The TRAITS programme).

For additional details of Prof Shankar-Hari's research, please see academic webpage. Ruben Tommasi, Ph.D., has extensive expertise in preclinical development with almost 30 years' of industry and biotech experience. He is currently Chief Scientific Officer of Dunad Therapeutics since 2022.

Prior to Dunad, he was a founding leader and Chief Scientific Officer at Entasis Therapeutics (2015 - 2022). He also spent 4 years at AstraZeneca as Executive Director, Chemistry, of the Infection Innovative Medicines unit, after having been at Novartis for 17 years where he led several medicinal chemistry efforts, most recently the Infectious Disease Therapy unit. He received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the State University of New York at Albany.

Richard G. Wunderink, MD, is a highly-experienced clinician scientist, active in pulmonary infections and sepsis. He is a professor of medicine in the Pulmonary and Critical Care Division of Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine and formerly medical director of the MICU, Northwestern Memorial Hospital. He co-chaired the 2007 IDSA (Infectious Diseases Society of America) /ATS (American Thoracic Society) Consensus Guidelines Committee on the management of community-acquired pneumonia.

He was a member of previous ATS/IDSA guidelines committee on HAP/VAP and the ERS/ESCIM/ESCMID/ALAT International Guidelines for the Management of HAP/VAP and the recently published ERS/ESCIM/ESCMID/ALAT guidelines for management of Severe CAP. He received his MD from the Indiana University School of Medicine. Leveraging the invaluable expertise of the SAB, the AUROBAC team is well prepared to advance its product pipeline and provide effective treatments for patients with severe bacterial infections.