Antonio (Toni) Perez is Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and chairman of advisory boards in several pharmaceutical and biotech companies.
Toni has over 37 years of experience in the life science sector in research, drug development, registration and the launch of therapies in infectious diseases, oncology, the central nervous system, and gastrointestinal tract and others.
Since September 2013, he has been the CMO at Combioxin/LASCCO, a private Swiss clinical stage biotech company that develops innovative agents for the treatment of serious bacterial infections including those caused by antibiotic-resistant strains. The lead candidate, CAL02, is a novel anti-virulence agent at clinical stage in patients with severe pneumonia.
Nowadays, he is the Head of Clinical development at Aptarion Biotech AG, a clinical-stage drug development company leveraging the unique properties of mirror-image (L-) aptamers. L‑Aptamers. Its leading candidate, AON-D21, neutralizes complement factor C5a, a central player of the immune system that triggers excessive immune responses in severe inflammatory diseases and infections.
Toni was Senior Medical Advisor at Abionic SA, a business uniquely positioned at the intersection of medical technology, biotechnology and nanotechnology which is developing Pancreatic Stone Protein for the early diagnosis of sepsis. He is a member of the European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Study Group for Critically Ill Patients and the Study Group for Nosocomial Infections, and also advised Debiopharm for ID opportunities. At MassChallenge, he is judge and mentor, and expert of the European Commission for the FP7-HEALTH-2010, Horizon 2020, EUREKA and the Innovation Fund Denmark projects.
His previous roles have included: local Head of Clinical Research of ID and international medical expert in ID, dermatology, transplant and immunology at Novartis; Medical Director in Infectious Diseases at The Medicines Company; Chief Medical Officer in several ID projects with monoclonal antibodies at Kenta Biotech; Chairman of the Advisory Board for bacterial and fungal sepsis at ImmunNovative Developments and head of development of anti-infectives at Basilea Pharmaceutica. Medical Advisor for new formulations of antibiotics at INSMED; for the development of monoclonal antibodies at Aridis Pharmaceuticals, for a study with amphotericin B lipid in fungal prophylaxis in transplants at Elan, for the use of stem cells in sepsis at Tigenix.
Toni has authored 49 publications in peer-reviewed journals and a book chapter on fungemia in critical care. He has participated in more than a hundred communications in international congresses and has been an invited speaker at numerous meetings and postgraduate courses.
Toni received his medical degree from the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, holds a diploma of medicine in the pharmaceutical industry and is board certified in intensive care.