Kintai Therapeutics Announces the Appointment of Dr. Francesca Barone as Head of Experimental Medicine

Cambridge, Mass. – October 21, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) – Kintai Therapeutics, a Flagship Pioneering company, today announced that Francesca Barone, M.D., Ph.D., has joined Kintai as the head of experimental medicine.

“Experimental medicine is a disruptive approach towards clinical development that seeks to identify key decision-making signals through small, data-dense clinical trials,” said Paul Peter Tak, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Kintai. “Francesca’s experience leading a laboratory focused on identifying early markers of activity to reduce drug development timelines is precisely the expertise needed at Kintai to advance and prioritize our robust portfolio of ten product candidates.”

Dr. Barone is a board qualified rheumatologist. Over the past 6 years, she has been working across academia and industry to establish collaborative partnerships to accelerate drug development. Prior to Kintai, Dr. Barone was a reader and academic head of business engagement for the College of Medical and Dental Science (MDS) at the University of Birmingham. During her tenure in this position, she facilitated several collaborative research programs between industry and academia, championing the importance of implementing biological measures of outcome in clinical trials to provide early readouts of efficacy. Dr. Barone obtained her M.D. in Italy in 2001 and a Ph.D. at Kings College London in 2008. She moved to the University of Birmingham in 2010 where she was awarded two consecutive fellowships from the Wellcome Trust and Versus Arthritis to establish a translational team investigating the mechanisms that regulate lymphocyte organization and survival within tissue target of chronic autoimmune diseases both in humans and animal models.

Dr. Barone said, “I am impressed by the quality of research at Kintai and its ability to quickly enable decision making based on data. Kintai’s portfolio of medicines creates unique opportunities to improve patients’ lives, and I look forward to advancing these programs into clinical development.”

About Kintai

Founded in 2016 by Flagship Labs, the innovation foundry of Flagship Pioneering, Kintai Therapeutics is uniquely focused on unlocking the power of the enteric signaling network and its signals throughout the body to fight disease and restore the health of patients. The company’s Precision Enteric Medicine™ (PEM™) discovery and therapeutic platform is based on a deep understanding of the interconnected biology of the microbiome, gut immune system, and enteric nervous system. Kintai has pioneered a new frontier in gut science, resulting in a unique understanding of a wealth of new genes, metabolites, and signaling molecules, leveraging these insights to rapidly translate into a highly actionable pipeline. The company’s expertise in chemistry, human biology, experimental medicine, and artificial intelligence represents a biology discovery and therapeutic development engine to rapidly identify and deliver new medicines. Kintai’s multidisciplinary approach has delivered a pipeline of 10+ programs across multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, neurology, and immunology.

Based in Cambridge, Mass., Kintai believes that its core strengths lie in the hearts and minds of its talented employees who keep patients at the center of everything we do. To learn more, please visit the company’s website at www.kintaitx.com.