NJ Bio, Inc., had the great honor to welcome their esteemed SAB member, Fellow of The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and renowned biotechnology consultant, Dr. Ravi Chari, to their headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey in January 2023. Dr. Chari is the Ex-Vice President, Chemistry & Biochemistry of ImmunoGen Inc., and has over 30 years of experience in the field of Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs). He is one of the pioneers in employing targeted drug delivery to tumor cells and has dedicated many years of research towards developing and improving ADC technologies. Dr. Chari is an inventor on 102 issued patents, and author on > 60 peer-reviewed publications. At ImmunoGen, his group designed several potent compounds, including the maytansinoid class used in the FDA-approved ADC Kadcyla® and ELAHERE™. His group also developed other novel payloads, linkers, and conjugation technology for ADCs, and was involved with target evaluation, planning of pre-clinicals, scale-up and manufacturing of payloads and linkers.
During his visit to NJ Bio, Dr. Chari presented on ‘Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs): The journey from the Beginning to Now’. He enlightened the entire team on approaches of improving ADC technologies by enhancing antibody properties, potency of payloads and linker stability. His talk also focused on the influence of cleavable peptide linkers to achieve enhanced activity. He shared his journey in developing the first ADC (Kadcyla®) for a prevalent, solid tumor indication, which is a landmark discovery in the treatment of HER2 positive cancer treatment.
NJ Bio, thanks Dr. Chari for sharing his prolific research experience and for inspiring the entire team with his novel approaches for design and synthesis of next-generation chemotherapeutic agents!