Pluripotent stem cell (PSC) therapies provide hope to patients with incurable diseases. But current approaches to bringing them to market are challenging.
Development is risky and often poorly planned, manufacturing processes are unpredictable and costly, and income models are unreliable.
That’s where Alder Therapeutics comes in.
Officially founded in 2022, the vision of Alder Therapeutics took root a decade earlier. Our co-founder, Kristian Tryggvason, motivated by a discussion with his father, Professor Karl Tryggvason, and a belief in the untapped potential of laminin technology, set the stage for what would become a transformative force in pluripotent cell therapy.
Fast forward to 2022, when the data from animal studies clearly showed the benefit of the photoreceptor cell differentiation and cardiac cell differentiation methods, which had been further developed by Professor Tryggvason with the support of Duke-NUS and other external parties.
It was then that Alder Therapeutics materialized. Kristian, together with Stijn Heessen and Ricardo Baptista attracted the attention of Linc and Flerie. Early in 2023, our team licensed the technology from Duke-NUS, successfully transferred the manufacturing process to a CDMO, and generated innovative analytical methods that further bolstered our operations.
Come September 2023, we ambitiously aim to secure funding to take our groundbreaking ALD01 eye project to Phase I. Looking beyond, 2024 will usher in a new phase of rigorous verification studies and the initiation of GLP Tox studies, paving the way for a landmark clinical trial in 2026.
But Alder Therapeutics’ journey is more than a recount of milestones. It's a testament to our dedication to medical innovation, patient outcome, and our enduring commitment to cure the incurable.
Drawing on extensive academic and commercial cell therapy experience, we work in accordance with the AlderEdge philosophy, which focuses on de-risking cell therapy development by keeping the commercial product in mind from the start.
Any cell therapy program progressed according to the AlderEdge principles will consider critical determinants of success from the get-go:
In this way, we streamline development and manufacturing, and maximize the chances of program success which benefits patients and our investors.
Using the AlderEdge™ methodology, we’re progressing two game-changing allogeneic stem cell therapies through development — the first for the treatment of Retinitis Pigmentosa and a second for the treatment of heart failure.
Both candidates are backed by promising, high-quality preclinical data. We are on track to bring our lead therapy to first-in-human trials in 2026.
Kristian Tryggvason is founder and CEO of Alder Therapeutics. He is responsible for driving preclinical development of the company’s promising pipeline of pluripotent stem cell therapies, in addition to managing all PR, marketing and fundraising activities.
Kristian is a deeply experienced, fearless, and resilient business leader with a flair for selling great ideas and building exceptional teams. Prior to Alder, Kristian founded Swedish cell culture solutions company BioLamina, growing it to a profitable €100m enterprise with 70+ employees and more than €17m in annual sales across 35 countries. He has also held business development and project management positions in the pharmaceutical sector, where he created patent strategies, out-licensed cell therapy products, and gained broad exposure to the clinical, regulatory, and commercial aspects of drug development.
Just like the other members of the Alder Team, Kristian blends his deep business knowledge and experience with rigorous scientific training. He holds an MSc in Molecular Biology from the University of Oulu in Finland, a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and an MBA from the Copenhagen Business School.
Stijn Heessen is the Chief Operations Officer of Alder Therapeutics, where he brings a unique combination of extensive scientific training and sharp business acumen. As COO, he is responsible for business development, contracting, regulatory and clinical strategy, and health economics and market access activities for Alder’s cell therapy pipeline.
Prior to Alder, Stijn spent more than 12 years in senior global business development and licensing positions in the pharmaceutical sector, working for companies such as Perrigo Consumer Selfcare International, Sanofi Consumer Healthcare, and Boehringer Ingelheim. His experience has seen him lead international cross-functional teams and close numerous multi-million euro licensing deals. Stijn has also held Regulatory Affairs Manager roles at both GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim, where he worked closely together with marketing teams to support the launch of new products.
Stijn has an MSc in biomedical sciences from Utrecht University, a Ph.D. in cell and tumour biology from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, and held post-doctoral positions at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research and the Netherlands Cancer Institute. He has published extensively in high-impact journals and received an EMBO Postdoctoral Fellowship in recognition of his research excellence.
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Professor Dominik Fischer is an Ophthalmic Surgeon at the Oxford Eye Hospital and full Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford. He is also Professor of Ophthalmology at the Centre for Ophthalmology Tübingen, Germany and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
As a world-renowned expert, he serves on the advisory board of patient advocacy groups, biotech and pharmaceutical industries and has been an expert advisor to governmental regulators. He has given ~100 invited lectures across the world and written ~100 peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals. His work has received over 25 awards, including the Leonhard Klein award for the advancement of vitreoretinal surgery and the Senator H. Wacker award for scientific contributions to the field of retinal disease.
Professor Fischer holds an MD for research performed at the University of Pennsylvania, in addition to a second Doctorate for developing a new form of retinal gene therapy with Robert MacLaren at Oxford. He continues to lead clinical trials in the UK and Europe and is Chief Investigator of the first global post-approval safety study for ocular gene therapy.
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Dr Gerard Boink is a cardiologist at the Amsterdam UMC Heart Centre and holds an MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam, in addition to MD and PhD degrees.
Dr Boink directs a translational cell and gene therapy group that focuses on the development of novel arrhythmia treatments and represents Amsterdam Cardiovascular Sciences as their translational valorization officer.
His translational research has been supported by various prestigious personal and consortium grants, including a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, and European Innovation Council (EIC) Pathfinder and Transition Grants.
In 2016, Dr Boink co-founded PacingCure B.V., a cardiac gene therapy company aimed at the development of biological pacemakers and related antiarrhythmic gene therapies.
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Professor Anders Kvanta is a professor in Ophthalmology at the Karolinska Institute and Senior Consultant in Vitreoretinal Surgery at St. Erik Eye Hospital. He is a principal investigator and lead researcher in clinical gene therapy and stem-cell based projects on retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.
Anders has a PhD in Medical Research and has published over90 original studies on translational retinal research, ranging from angiogenesis to gene and cell therapy.
Dr. Lynn Yap is a scientific co-founder of Alder Therapeutics and an assistant professor at both the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the National Heart Research Institute Singapore. While she was a post-doctoral student at Duke-NUS Medical School, Dr. Yap co-invented a laminin platform technology for cardiomyopathy, and demonstrated the potential of cardiac progenitors to regenerate cardiac tissue in myocardial infarction preclinical models.
She is the principal investigator and director of a regenerative cardiology and cardiometabolic medicine group, where she seeks to uncover the molecular and physiological mechanisms underpinning stem cell-based therapy for regenerative cardiology. Dr. Yap has been widely recognized for her work, having received the Khoo Teck Puat Postdoctoral Fellowship Award, and the Goh Cardiovascular Research Award. She was also the team Principal Investigator in the National Research Foundation Competitive Research Programme (CRP) for Regenerative Medicine.
Dr. Yap holds a. Ph.D. in integrative sciences and engineering from the National University of Singapore, and is a member of the International Society of Stem Cell Research, Stem Cell Society Singapore, and the Early Career Advisory Group for eLife Sciences Publications. Through innovative discoveries and inventions, Dr. Yap hopes to positively shape the future of healthcare and medicine.
Dr. Hwee Goon Tay is the scientific co-founder of Alder Therapeutics and an assistant pprofessor at the Centre for Vision Research in DUKE-NUS Medical School, Singapore, where she co-invented a patented method for laminin-based photoreceptor differentiation. The method uses laminin to drive differentiation of pluripotent human stem cells intophotoreceptor progenitors that partially restore retinal function, as shown in pre-clinical animal models. Dr. Tay was awarded the National Medical Research Council Open Fund-Young Individual Research Grant (NMRC OF-YIRG) and National Research Foundation Competitive Research Program (CRP) funding to advance this exciting retinal cell therapy innovation.
Dr. Tay has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry & molecular biology from the University of New South Wales, Australia, a Ph.D. in biological sciences from the National University of Singapore, and undertook post-doctoral training at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, as well as at DUKE-NUS Medical School.
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