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Freeline announces promotion of Romuald Corbau, Ph.D. to Chief Scientific Officer

Written by: Nola Cadman
Published on: 1 Oct 2020

London, 28 September 2020 – Freeline Therapeutics Holdings plc (Nasdaq: FRLN) (the “Company” or “Freeline”), a clinical-stage, fully integrated, next generation, systemic, AAV-based gene therapy company with the ambition of transforming the lives of patients suffering from inherited systemic debilitating diseases, today announces that Romuald Corbau, Ph.D. has been promoted to the role of Chief Scientific Officer. The Founder of Freeline, Professor Amit Nathwani, will continue in his role as Clinical and Scientific Adviser and member of the Board of Directors of the Company.

Since joining Freeline in 2017 as Vice President, Research, Dr. Corbau has played an important role in driving Freeline’s clinical and pre-clinical programmes, as well as building out the Company’s systemic gene therapy capabilities, all based on Freeline’s proprietary potent AAVS3 capsid. He will continue to be a member of Freeline’s Executive Leadership Team.

"Romuald’s appointment to Chief Scientific Officer reflects his strong scientific acumen and deep expertise in AAV-based gene therapy development,” said Theresa Heggie, Chief Executive Officer. “He has made significant contributions to Freeline throughout his tenure, notably in creating the novel and proprietary transgenes for our Gaucher Disease and Haemophilia A programmes. The potential of gene therapy to change patients’ lives has never been greater and I look forward to working with him as we continue to progress our pipeline of innovative product candidates.”

Romuald brings over 20 years of pharmaceutical industry and academic experience to Freeline. Prior to joining the Company, he served as the Translational Lead at Spark Therapeutics. Romuald started his pharmaceutical career at Pfizer Global Research & Development where he held positions of increasing responsibility in several therapeutic areas. He holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Tumor Virology at the German Centre for Cancer Research, Heidelberg, Germany.

Freeline is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on AAV-based gene therapy targeting the liver. Its vision is to create better lives for people suffering from chronic, systemic diseases using the potential of gene therapy as a one-time treatment to provide a potential functional cure. Freeline is headquartered in the U.K. and has operations in Germany and the U.S.