BioBuzz: Martha Sklavos, PhD, PMP Joins Arcellx as new Senior Director, Program Management

Dr. Sklavos joins Arcellx with over 15 years of experience in biomedical and clinical research in academic, government, and industry settings. Dr. Sklavos brings broad drug development expertise to Arcellx as a result of managing multiple complex projects and portfolios comprised of various drug modalities including monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates, peptide conjugates, and cell therapies. Dr. Sklavos is passionate about delivering innovative therapeutics to patients and will be responsible for the strategic management of Arcellx’s growing portfolio of preclinical and clinical assets.

Most recently, Dr. Sklavos served as the Senior Strategic Project Manager through the successful launch of Calquence in 1L CLL for the Hematology Franchise within US Oncology Medical Affairs at AstraZeneca. Prior to her role in Medical Affairs, Dr. Sklavos spent 5 years at Med Immune where she was recognized for complex problem solving, innovative strategy development. and operational excellence as the Lead Project and Portfolio Manager for the Antibody Drug Conjugate portfolio within Oncology and as the Lead Project and Portfolio Manager for the preclinical Cardiovascular, Renal, and Metabolism portfolio.

Dr. Sklavos earned her undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University, her Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and completed her post-doctoral
research at the National Cancer Institute/Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research.

It is a pleasure to welcome Martha to Arcellx. Martha’s strategic perspectives and drug development expertise align well with our vision of bringing our ARC-sparX immune cell therapies to patients and physicians in academic and community centers. We are thrilled to have Martha managing Arcellx’s programs spanning discovery, preclinical, clinical and manufacturing functions. In just a few weeks, her expertise has been appreciated across the entire company.

David Hilbert, PhD., President & CEO, Arcellx

Arcellx

Arcellx is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel, adaptive. and controllable cell therapies for the treatment of patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases. The company’s proprietary ARC-sparX platform separates the tumor-recognition and tumor-killing functions of conventional CAR-T cell therapies into sparX (soluble protein antigen-receptor X-linkers) proteins that recognize and bind specific antigens on diseased cells and flag those cells for destruction; and ARC-T (Antigen Receptor Complex-T) cells that bind the sparX proteins and kill the flagged cells. Arcellx has developed a collection of sparX proteins that bind different cell surface antigens. Administration of one or more sparX proteins sequentially or simultaneously can redirect ARC-T cells to different disease antigens to potentially address relapsed and refractory disease due to tumor heterogeneity or antigen escape. The adaptive nature of the ARC-sparX system may be further enhanced by the ability to curb ARC-T activity through modifications in the dose and frequency of sparX administration.