Flavio Solca

Flavio Solca serves as Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) at NBE Therapeutics since January 1, 2022. Flavio Solca has over 26 years of experience in the discovery and preclinical development of anticancer therapeutic modalities. Flavio Solca received his scientific education B.Sc (Honors) in biochemistry, immunology, biophysics, and cellular and molecular biology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, obtaining his Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry/Molecular and Cellular Biology in 1989. After completing 2 post-doctoral fellowships (Swiss National Foundation Grants), one at the University of Basel, working with Prof. Alex Eberle on melanocortin receptors, and the other at the University of Washington, Seattle, working on protein tyrosine phosphatases in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Prof. Edmond Fischer, he joined the Oncology Drug Discovery team of Boehringer Ingelheim RCV in Vienna in 1995. First as a laboratory head and then as a group director in the Pharmacology Department, Flavio Solca was involved in many research programs that led to the discovery of several patented clinical candidates including NCEs and NBEs. Amongst his key contributions, BIBW 2992 (Afatinib), an irreversible, ErbB family blocker was profiled and selected by the research team led by Flavio Solca (Biology/Pharmacology) and Frank Himmelsbach (Chemistry). Afatinib was tested in several Phase III clinical trials. Pivotal 1st line treatment results (LUX-Lung 3) showing an unprecedented and clinically meaningful delay in progression-free survival (almost 1 year) of NSCLC patients, compared with a combination of pemetrexed and cisplatin were disclosed at ASCO 2012. This led to the approval of Gi(l)otrif ™ (afatinib) in all major markets and afatinib is indicated for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) whose tumors have epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations. Gi(l)otrif ™ (afatinib) is also indicated for the treatment of patients with metastatic squamous NSCLC progressing after platinum-based chemotherapy. In addition to his work on novel therapeutic molecules, Flavio Solca also authored or co-authored multiple peer-reviewed original and review articles as well as book chapters.