Yacoub Habib
Chief Executive Officer Ophidion, Inc.
Yacoub Habib, Ph.D., MBA, is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board for Ophidion. He has more than 28 years of senior executive experience in the pharmaceutical industry including BMS, Pfizer, Ikaria, and Trevena. Since joining Ophidion in 2018, Dr. Habib and his team have embarked on leveraging a unique Trojan horse technology to deliver therapeutic molecules, including oligonucleotides, peptides, and antibodies selectively to the brain following intravenous (IV) administration. Ophidion’s programs involve internally discovered and patented gene-silencing oligonucleotides, complexed to its Trojan horse, to slow/halt the progression of various neurodegenerative disorders such as Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease
Seminars
- Discussing a novel “Trojan horse” technology that enables the direct delivery of oligos to the brain via intravenous or subcutaneous administration
- Therapeutic efficacy in Huntington’s disease demonstrated at a dose significantly lower than the standard intrathecal ASO dose (less than 1,000 the dose used intrathecally) Over 95% halting of disease progression in chronic preclinical studies
- In a collaboration with a large pharmaceutical company, a single IV dose of an ASO complexed to our Trojan horse was able to achieve equivalent protein reduction as an ICV dose. Confirmed safety and consistent brain delivery in repeat-dose non-human primate studies
- This non-invasive delivery approach offers a significant clinical advantage over invasive modalities or other BBB shuttles and could be a powerful enabler for any siRNA/ASO or peptide/protein programs targeting CNS indications
