Gilde Healthcare portfolio company Adcendo, a biotech company developing innovative antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for the treatment of underserved cancers, announces today the appointment of Michael Pehl as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Henrik Stage, co-founder of Adcendo, will move to the role of Chief Financial Officer.
Michael Pehl has over 25 years of international biotechnology and oncology leadership experience in both the US and Europe. He joins Adcendo from GEMoaB, where he served as CEO and led the recent formation and launch of a globally leading allogeneic CAR-T company together with Blackstone Life Sciences and Intellia Therapeutics. Prior to this, he was CEO of Immunomedics Inc., leading the development of sacituzumab govitecan in metastatic triple negative breast cancer, which was approved in the U.S. in 2020. Immunomedics was acquired by Gilead in 2020 for $21 billion. Previously, Michael Pehl was President of Oncology at Celgene, responsible for the global commercial, clinical development, medical strategy and operations. His responsibilities included overseeing global clinical programs and commercial launches of several drugs including Lenalidomide (Revlimid®), Pomalidomide (Pomalyst®; Imnovid®), Enasidenib (IDHIFA®), Nab-paclitaxel (Abraxane) and Luspatercept (Reblozyl®). Prior to this he held commercial leadership roles in Oncology and Nephrology at Amgen.
Michael Pehl, Chief Executive Officer of Adcendo, added: “I am incredibly excited to join Adcendo and help advancing our ADCs into the next wave of development. The company has a unique scientific understanding of its novel targets and I have been genuinely impressed by the progress achieved in such a short period since inception. I look forward to working with Henrik, the excellent team in Copenhagen and our Board to unlock the full potential of our science and bring a pipeline of next generation ADCs to underserved cancer patients.”
About ADCendo ApS
Adcendo ApS, a spin-out from the University of Copenhagen and Rigshospitalet, is developing novel antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for treatment of cancers. It was founded in 2017 by scientists Niels Behrendt, Lars Henning Engelholm and Christoffer Nielsen from The Finsen Laboratory of Rigshospitalet and the University of Copenhagen, and Henrik Stage, a biotech-entrepreneur active in several biotech companies, and previously CEO/CFO of Santaris Pharma which was acquired by Roche in 2014. In 2021, the company raised its Series A round of EUR 51 million, which was one of the largest such financings for a Nordic biotech company. Investors include Gilde Healthcare, Novo Holdings, Ysios Capital, RA Capital Management, HealthCap and BioInnovation Institute.
About Gilde Healthcare
Gilde Healthcare is a specialized healthcare investor managing over €1.4 billion across two fund strategies: Venture & Growth and Private Equity. The Venture & Growth fund invests in medtech, healthtech and therapeutics in Europe and North America. Please visit the company’s website at www.gildehealthcare.com.
