James (Jim) Appleman, Ph.D., is Chief Scientific Officer, Senior Vice President of R&D, and a cofounder of Primmune Therapeutics. He has more than 30 years of experience in building successful drug discovery organizations and has been an advisor to biotech, hi-tech, and diagnostic firms. Dr. Appleman is the principal scientific innovator behind Primmune’s lead asset, PRTX007, and other immunostimulatory agents in the company’s portfolio. In addition to traditional discovery and nonclinical development, he is responsible for translational sciences essential for PRTX007’s continued progress in clinical development.
Dr. Appleman’s entire career has been devoted to the creation of new medicines for the treatment of patients with cancer and serious viral diseases. During the last two decades, much of this effort has been spent in finding ways to engage the innate immune system for therapeutic benefit. As part of this journey, he discovered an unexpectedly complex set of features – almost all counter-intuitive – that must be incorporated into small-molecule agonists of toll-like receptor 7 (TLR7) if they are to be used for chronic therapy, particularly in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. These understandings have been rendered into practice, culminating in the discovery and development of PRTX007.
Before founding Primmune, Dr. Appleman was a cofounder of eFFECTOR Therapeutics, where he established both the technology base and bioinformatics infrastructure to support eFFECTOR’s unique programs targeting dysregulated mRNA translation. He previously served as Senior Vice President, Research and Chief Scientific Officer at Anadys Pharmaceuticals, where he played a pivotal role in the business process culminating in the acquisition of Anadys by Roche Pharma and in the invention, characterization, and clinical development of the company’s internally discovered drug candidates, setrobuvir and ANA773. ANA773 is a novel TLR7 agonist originally intended for the treatment of cancer and hepatic viral diseases.
Prior to joining Anadys, Dr. Appleman held positions at Gensia and its subsidiary Metabasis Therapeutics and was a faculty member at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from Oklahoma State University and completed his postdoctoral training at Dartmouth Medical School. He has authored more than 70 scientific publications, reviews and book chapters. He is an inventor of proprietary technology and a holder of numerous patents.