Welcome To
Seventis Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Meeting Clinical Needs in Cancer Therapy
More than 1.8 million individuals were diagnosed with cancer in 2020 with over 600,000 deaths. Traditional therapies are limited by their short- and long-term adverse side effects and often limit patients’ survival and quality of life. There remains an urgent need for more targeted and less toxic cancer therapies across all types of cancer and for all populations of cancer patients.
Our Technology
Seventis Solution
Seventis is developing a novel cancer therapy with the potential for broad-spectrum efficacy with limited harm to normal cells and minimized toxic side effects.
Our therapeutic approach is based on targeting DNA helicase, a ubiquitous enzyme complex essential to DNA replication. All cells rely on active DNA helicase to divide and propagate. In normal healthy cells, DNA helicase activity is resilient and maintained by inherent biological mechanisms. However, in cancer cells, helicases are more vulnerable to inhibition than in normal cells, thus providing a novel means to selectively target cancer cells at the cell replication level.
Seventis is developing a first-in-class therapy that could be toxic to a wide proportion of cancers, while not compromising patients’ quality of life and survival. Currently there are no known drug programs targeting helicase for cancer therapy.
Our Location
Seventis was founded on the campus of St Leo University in, St. Leo, Florida, and is affiliated with the Institute for Life Science Entrepreneurship (ILSE) in Union, New Jersey. ILSE is a non-profit 501(c)(3) research institute supporting the creation of life-science companies and helping existing businesses expand and succeed.
ILSE provides incubator space for 8-10 start-up companies, a central services lab offering in-house research services, an external network of laboratories providing a full suite of discovery to IND services, and a network of consultants with a full range of drug R&D expertise.
Our Team
Seventis was founded by an outstanding team of scientists from academia and industry, and business and drug development experts, and draws on a large network of consultants with decades of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Collectively, the team has started, capitalized and exited numerous companies, and put countless drugs into the clinic with over 10 drugs currently on the market, including pioneering immuno-oncology drugs.
Sergiy Borysov, Assistant Professor of Biology at St. Leo University, in St Leo, Florida, is strongly committed to advancing cancer biology research and improving options and outcomes for cancer treatment, with the lifelong goal of alleviating the significant burden that cancer places on our society, families, and afflicted individuals. Dr. Borysov holds two doctoral degrees, a PhD in Biochemistry from National Kyiv University in Kyiv, Ukraine, and a PhD in Medical Sciences from the University of South Florida. He spent 15 years pursuing fruitful research at the Byrd Alzheimer’s Institute at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, and over the past five years has directed a drug discovery research program focused on development of a novel peptide-based cancer therapy, which has become the founding technology of the Seventis. He is an inventor of pending US and international patents covering the Seventis DNA Helicase program.
Dr. Bostian is an entrepreneur scientist with a distinguished career in industry and academia. He is a founder of nine biopharma companies, an inventor on numerous patents and publications in drug discovery and genomics and has led efforts resulting in a number of drugs and clinical candidates in infectious and inflammatory diseases. He was responsible for the discovery and development of new anti-microbial agents as well as for the discovery of new leads from natural products for all of Merck’s worldwide drug discovery programs. He is a founder of the Institute for Life Science Entrepreneurship (ILSE), a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for CARB-X, and a fellow of the American Academy for Microbiology.
Kevin Kreeger is a Quality Management Systems expert, with 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical, medical device and biotech industries. He has helped manufacturing and development sites around the world increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their operations, as well as ensure regulatory compliance with a number of regulations and standards. Kevin has served as a City Council member in Broomfield, CO as well as sitting on numerous boards, committees and commissions.
Kevin graduated from Roosevelt University in Chicago, with a degree in Chemistry, and minors in physics and math.
Thomas Richardson is an innovator and strategist integrating a broad background as a scientist, engineer, entrepreneur, and business development and strategy executive. Over the past 20 years, he has worked in a variety of roles from industry, academia, and non-profits. He was one of the first scientists at Momenta Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, MA and led a research team as the company went public and filed its first ANDA. He moved to business development with Medarex (acquired by BMS) in Princeton, NJ where his focus was on licensing and establishing collaborations on Opdivo, the immuno-oncology drug. He was one of the first investors of Neothetics, an aesthetic product company initially founded on technology Thomas developed as a post-doc. He spent several years at Rutgers establishing industry collaborations and then moved to a strategy role with BioNJ, the biotechnology trade association where he focused on promoting venture capital and entrepreneurship. He is currently President, Institute for Life Science Entrepreneurship, and involved in several startup companies.
Thomas has a PhD in Biochemistry from Boston University School of Medicine and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He also has an MBA from Babson College / Rider University.
In his thirty-year career in pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Tomasz Glinka has been involved in variety of discovery projects as an active participant as well as medicinal chemistry consultant. Most recently as a Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Rempex Pharmaceuticals, he was a member of a team that successfully developed a first-in-class boronate inhibitor of bacterial beta-lactamases. At present his scientific focus is on modifications of bioactive molecules aimed at improvements of cellular delivery.
Dr. McLaughlin has more than 20 years of experience in life science research and development, with extensive experience in microbial physiology, molecular biology and assay development. He is formerly from AstraZeneca where his responsibilities encompassed target identification and the development of informatic workflows and databases to support discovery activities. He was also responsible for directing the Infectious Diseases next-generation sequencing facility in support of target identification, antimicrobial resistance studies and epidemiology profiling for numerous discovery and development projects and academic collaborations. He was involved in the pre-clinical development of several antibiotics, as well as the clinical development of Zavfcefta (ceftazidime/avibactam) and post-marketing surveillance activities of Zinforo (ceftaroline fosamil).
Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Bob was the Director of Bioinformatics at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC) Laboratory of Genomics and Bioinformatics and an Assistant Professor in the OUHSC Department of Microbiology, with supported research projects in microbial physiology, pathogenesis and genomics. Dr. McLaughlin received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from Clemson University, followed by postdoctoral research positions at State University of New York, Buffalo and University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.
Dr. Palladino has concentrated his research efforts on defining the biological interactions of cytokines and growth factors in inflammatory diseases and cancer. He received his Ph.D. from New York University and after completing postdoctoral training and promoted as a junior faculty member at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, he joined Genentech where he held multiple positions including Director of Cell Biology and Director of Research Strategies. As Vice President of Preclinical Development at Applied Molecular Evolution (IXSYS), he also directed the angiogenesis inhibitor program that led to the initiation of phase I clinical trials with Vitaxin. Dr. Palladino was Chief Technical Officer, Senior Vice President and Co-founder of Nereus Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company in San Diego focused on developing novel, small molecules isolated from unique marine microorganisms to treat cancer, inflammation and infectious diseases. Dr. Palladino has over 250 publications, over 50 patents and applications, and has served as editor for leading scientific journals such as Cancer Research and Journal of Immunology.