LIXTE Biotechnology Holdings, Inc. announced the appointment of Jan Schellens, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer (CMO). Dr. Schellens brings to LIXTE more than 25 years of clinical experience as a medical oncologist, pharmacologist and clinical pharmacologist, including more than two decades developing and bringing new drugs to market. He assumes the CMO role at LIXTE effective August 1, 2024, succeeding James S. Miser, M.D., who is leaving the Company after serving in this capacity since 2020.

Co-author of more 900 publications in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Dr. Schellens has held leadership positions at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam and the Dr. Daniel den Hoed Clinic-Erasmus University in Rotterdam. He was professor of clinical pharmacology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, where he earned his M.D. degree, and he served as a board member and Chief Medical Officer of Byondis B.V. in Nijmegen, Netherlands through September 2023. Dr. Schellens also earned a Ph.D. degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Leiden University in Leiden, Netherlands.

Dr. Schellens served for 17 years as a board member of the Dutch Medicines Evaluation Board, and for 12 years as a member and chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Board Oncology of the EMA. He also is a part-time CMO of Modra Pharmaceuticals B.V., an Amsterdam-based clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that successfully completed a Phase 2b clinical study of ModraDoc006/r, a boosted oral taxane therapeutic, in contrast to the standard-of-care IV chemotherapy docetaxel, in patients with prostate cancer.