Adverum Biotechnologies Appoints Romuald Corbau, Ph.D. as Chief Scientific Officer

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Jan. 29, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Adverum Biotechnologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: ADVM), a clinical-stage company that aims to establish gene therapy as a new standard of care for highly prevalent ocular diseases, today announced that Romuald “Romu” Corbau, Ph.D., has joined Adverum as the company’s chief scientific officer. Dr. Corbau will serve as a member of Adverum’s executive committee.

“On behalf of the entire team at Adverum, I am delighted to welcome Dr. Corbau as the newest member of our executive leadership team. Romu has spent the majority of his career working to deliver on the promise of gene therapy. Earlier in his career, Romu led Spark Therapeutics’ translational R&D for Luxturna, a subretinal injection gene therapy product for Leber’s congenital amaurosis, an inherited form of vision loss that frequently results in blindness,” stated Laurent Fischer, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Adverum. “We expect that Romu’s deep expertise in AAV-mediated gene therapies and ophthalmic research will prove invaluable as we advance Ixo-vec toward pivotal trials and commercialization for the treatment of wet AMD, the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.”  

“I am thrilled to head up the team responsible for Adverum’s industry-leading efforts in AAV vector and cassette optimization and excited to advance our early-stage research assets into our development pipeline,” commented Dr. Corbau. “This is an exciting time to join Adverum, as we look forward to multiple expected near-term data readouts from the ongoing LUNA Phase 2 clinical trial of Ixo-vec in wet AMD. I am excited to be part of advancing Ixo-vec with the goal of ultimately providing patients with what I believe has the potential to be the leading, and truly transformative, once-and-done wet AMD therapy.”

Dr. Corbau has over 25 years of industry experience ranging from startups to global pharmaceutical companies in the United States and Europe. Dr. Corbau joins Adverum from GenEdit, where he served as Chief Scientific Officer. Prior to joining GenEdit, Dr. Corbau progressed from Vice President of Research to Chief Scientific Officer at Freeline, a clinical stage company developing AAV-vector mediated systemic gene therapies for chronic diseases. Prior to Freeline, Dr. Corbau was Translational Lead at Spark Therapeutics, where his Translational department was focused on AAV sub-retinal injection gene therapy approaches for ocular indications, as well as Spark Therapeutics’ CNS and systemic, liver-directed therapies. Before joining Spark Therapeutics, Dr. Corbau held various research positions at Pfizer in the UK, CISTIM (The Centre for Innovation and Stimulation of Drug Discovery) in Belgium, and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Corbau earned his M.A. in Biochemistry from Lille University and his Ph.D. from L'Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale (INSERM) in Heidelberg, Germany.