Dr. Stegmann joins Crucell after having worked for almost five years as a professor and group leader at the University, Paul Sabatier/Laboratoire de Pharmacologie et de Biologie Structurale in France. Prior to this, he worked as an assistant professor at the University of Basel, Switzerland and as a post-doc at Yale University, New Haven, USA. Dr. Stegmann holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Groningen University (The Netherlands). During his academic career, Dr. Stegmann conducted extensive research on the membrane fusion activity of influenza virus.

Dr. Stegmann will be responsible for the research on vaccines that is aimed to increase the number of PER.C6 based vaccines produced for partners and the development of various vaccine projects within Crucell.
"We are delighted to have Toon join Crucell", says Dr. Ton Logtenberg, Chief Scientific Officer of Crucell. "With his expertise and experience, we believe Toon will make a significant contribution to further enhancing our efforts in our vaccine development programs. "

 

About Crucell
Crucell, a leading biotechnology company, develops biopharmaceuticals that are in tune with the human body, by making them 'as human as possible' (huMADE(TM) ). Crucell's focus is on human antibody-based therapeutics for treatment of cancer, and inflammatory diseases and on human vaccines for the prevention and treatment of influenza and other infectious diseases. Furthermore, Crucell discovers unique drug targets on diseased cells.

Crucell's two broadly applicable human technology platforms form the basis for this. The first is a human cell line expression platform, PER.C6(TM), on which a wide range of biopharmaceuticals can be developed and manufactured, such as vaccines, antibodies, therapeutic proteins and gene therapy products. The second technology is called MAbstract(TM), a set of tools based on phage antibody-display libraries and proprietary subtraction and selection technology, to discover novel drug targets and develop human monoclonal antibodies as therapeutics for a variety of diseases. Biopharmaceuticals produced on Crucell's human PER.C6(TM) technology are called huMADE(TM) .

Crucell makes its technologies available under exclusive or non-exclusive license agreements, and has currently signed 17 agreements with major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies for its PER.C6(TM) technology. Crucell has signed an exclusive agreement with Merck & Co., Inc. under which it was granted a license to use Crucell's PER.C6(TM) platform to develop vaccines for the prevention and treatment of HIV. This agreement also provides Merck the option of extending the exclusivity to cover three additional diseases in the future.

Crucell currently employs approximately 130 people in its facilities in Leiden and Utrecht.