Aptevo Therapeutics – Focus on Novel Immuno-Oncology Therapeutics

Dr. Dirk Huebner, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Aptevo Therapeutics, a biotech company, discusses the company’s focus on bringing novel immuno-oncology therapeutics to market. They leverage the innovative ADAPTIR™ and ADAPTIR-FLEX™ platform technologies to create therapeutic candidates designed to improve outcomes for cancer patients.

Dr. Huebner is a Medical Advisor Consultant with approximately 29 years of academic and industry- based clinical drug development experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. In the course of his career, he has led multiple clinical programs spanning all stages of development from Phase 1 through Phase 3 registration trials.

Before becoming a consultant Dr. Huebner served as CMO and Senior Medical Advisor for Mersana from November 2018 to January 2021, where he built their clinical development department and oversaw the development of their ADC pipeline. Prior to joining Mersana, Dr. Huebner served as Vice President, Head of Development, for Boston Biomedical where he assembled a robust clinical development team and oversaw the clinical development of multiple early stage compounds and the napabucasin phase 3 program.

Prior to his tenure at Boston Biomedical, Dr. Huebner spent six years with Millennium/Takeda Oncology as Executive Medical Director. During Dr. Huebner’s tenure at Takeda Oncology, he served as the global clinical lead for ADCETRIS ® (brentuximab vedotin), an ADC that is indicated for the treatment of Hodgkin lymphoma and certain CD30 positive T-cell lymphomas. In that role, he led the regulatory approval of ADCETRIS ® in Europe and the design and implementation of the subsequent registration-enabling studies for the compound. Prior to Takeda, he served as the clinical lead of clofarabine and its development in AML at Genzyme and held roles of increasing leadership and responsibility in global clinical drug development at Roche and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Dr. Huebner received his Medical Doctor degree from Freie Universitaet Berlin, Germany and pursued a medical residency in the Department of Urology, University Hospital Eppendorf, Hamburg.