BETHESDA, MD--(Marketwired - Jun 2, 2016) - Treos Bio, Inc., which is developing precision cancer vaccines paired to companion diagnostics, emerged from stealth mode today and announced the appointment of Dr. Menghis Bairu as Executive Chairman of the company.

Dr. Bairu is a physician, business executive, editor, author, and philanthropist. He brings more than two decades of international experience in the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, global health and non-profit arenas to Treos.

Despite the promise of using immunotherapies to harness the body's immune system to fight cancer, most of these medicines fail at the clinical stage. The few immunotherapies that have reached the market have benefitted only a small subset of cancer patients. Treos' understanding of the genetics that drive the immune system is allowing it to develop therapeutic vaccines that mount a powerful immune response to combat a particular cancer.

"We believe Treos, through our discovery of the mechanism of how the immune system recognizes and kills cancer cells, is able to identify high avidity targets, which allows us to overcome the main obstacles to successful development of cancer vaccines," said Dr. Bairu, Executive Chairman of Treos. "By pairing our vaccines with our companion diagnostics, we can identify patients that likely will benefit from our vaccines."

A group of biomedical and data scientists expert in vaccine development founded Treos Bio with the goal of creating computational technology for developing precision cancer vaccines matched to the genetics driving a patient's immune system. Through the use of computational biology, it believes it can significantly cut the time and cost of development and bring to market safe immunotherapies that are effective and affordable for a large portion of cancer patients.

Treos has completed preclinical development of therapeutic vaccines for melanoma, lung cancer, breast cancer, glioma, colorectal cancer and leukemia. Data derived from in silico clinical trials suggest that these products will likely have low toxicity and high disease control rates. Using its companion diagnostics Treos plans to enroll in clinical trials only cancer patients who are identified as likely responders to its vaccines.

In 2015, the company obtained EU market approval for its computational technology, the PEPI™ Test. It is a validated in vitro diagnostic device that predicts the tumor specific immune responses of HLA genotyped subjects. The PEPI Test is used for Treos' in silico vaccine design, preclinical and clinical development, and the selection of patients likely to respond to its vaccines.

"The PEPI Test allows us to develop our vaccines faster than competing immunotherapies," said Dr. Julianna Lisziewicz, President, Chief Scientific Officer, and co-founder of Treos. "We minimize the risk of clinical failure by being able to predict the safety and efficacy of our vaccines."

"We are moving rapidly to begin clinical development of our precision therapeutic vaccines," said John Hautman, CEO and co-founder of Treos. "The addition of Dr. Bairu as Executive Chairman of Treos brings deep expertise in executive leadership and clinical development to our company, as well as a global network of relationships within the clinical oncology community and industry that will enhance our ability to pursue partnerships and financings."

Dr. Bairu is the founder and Chairman Emeritus of Serenus Biotherapeutics, Inc., a specialty biopharmaceutical specializing in late-stage clinical development, in-licensing, and commercializing innovative therapies for the Sub-Saharan Africa market.

Prior to founding Serenus, Dr. Bairu concurrently served as Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, and Head of Global Development for Elan and as President and CEO of Elan's subsidiary, Speranza Therapeutics. He also served as Elan's General Manager, was the head of Elan International, and has broad international experience in the United States, Europe, Latin America, South East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa.

Before joining Elan, he worked for several leading biopharmaceutical companies including Genentech and Johnson & Johnson, and served on the board of OneWorld Health, a not-for-profit pharmaceutical company funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. He received his undergraduate degree in Business Administration from Instituto VII Tecnico Commerciale in Milan, Italy, and attended the Universita Statale, Facolta' di Medicina e Chirurgia in Milan, where he received his Medical Degree.

Note to attendees of ASCO
Treos' Dr. Menghis Bairu, John Hautman, Dr. Julianna Lisziewicz, Dr. Enikő Tőke, and Levente Molnár will be attending the ASCO Annual Meeting in Chicago June 3 to 7.

About Treos Bio, Inc.
Treos Bio uses computational biology to develop precision cancer immunotherapies tailored to patients' genetics. In contrast to presently available cancer immunotherapies, Treos' vaccines are designed to be safe and effective in a high proportion of cancer patients, and intended for use only in patients identified by its companion diagnostic tests as likely to respond. Computational development of its vaccines substantially decreases development time and cost and ensures a sustainable market by offering safe, effective, and affordable immunotherapies for a large portion of cancer patients. For more information, go to www.treosbio.com