SAN DIEGO, March 28, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tr1X, Inc. (pronounced “Trix”), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class allogeneic engineered Treg and CAR-Treg cell therapies with the potential to cure autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, today announced a planned leadership transition in which co-founder and Chief Operating Officer David de Vries will succeed Bill Lis as Chief Executive Officer, effective June 1, 2025. Mr. Lis will become Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors.
“Bill has been an exceptional leader in successfully guiding the company from early research into clinical development and preparing David to assume the role of CEO,” said Leon Chen, Ph.D., MBA, a member of the Tr1X Board of Directors and Partner at The Column Group. “David has proven he is ready to lead the company and its next stage of success as we aim to transform the field of curative cell therapies.”
“The Board of Directors and I have great confidence in David, who has been instrumental in shaping the company's strategic vision and leading operational execution,” said Mr. Lis. “As COO, David played a pivotal role in all Tr1X’s major milestones, including our Series A financing, scaling our allogeneic manufacturing process, and advancing our two first-in-class programs to clinical-stage with positive preliminary safety and biological activity data readouts from our lead program, TRX103. I am very optimistic about Tr1X’s future success under his leadership.”
“It is an honor to step into the role of CEO during such a pivotal moment for Tr1X. Our talented team has made tremendous progress since our Series A financing, expanding our expertise and successfully initiating groundbreaking clinical trials for TRX103, the first allogeneic engineered Type 1 Treg (Tr1) cell therapy to enter the clinic. We are also bullish on the highly differentiated profile of TRX319, our allogeneic CD19 CAR-Treg, given its encouraging preclinical safety and efficacy signals. With additional data anticipated later this year and early next year in indications with critical medical need, we are well-positioned to drive transformative outcomes for patients who are waiting for an improvement over the status quo,” said Mr. de Vries. “I am excited to build on our momentum and to collaborate closely with Bill, our Board and the entire Tr1X team as we continue to advance our mission to fundamentally shift the paradigm from managing autoimmune and inflammatory diseases to curing them.”
Mr. de Vries has more than a decade of experience founding and scaling healthcare and biotechnology companies. Prior to Tr1X, he was the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer at Arine, successfully developing and launching multiple healthcare AI products now serving millions of patients across the U.S. Previously, he was Director of Commercial Development and Strategy at Proteus Digital Health, the first company to achieve approval for a digital medicine, Abilify MyCite®. Prior to that, Mr. de Vries worked at the RAND Corporation, a global think tank, contributing to research initiatives focused on evaluating innovative healthcare payment models and assessing policy implications of the Affordable Care Act. He earned an undergraduate degree from Harvard and completed his graduate studies at Queens’ College, Cambridge.
About Tr1X
Tr1X is a clinical-stage private biotechnology company pioneering a new class of curative cell therapies designed to fundamentally reset the immune system in patients with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Founded by leading scientists who discovered Tr1 cells, Tr1X develops off-the-shelf, allogeneic Treg and CAR-Treg therapies engineered for superior safety, scalability and accessibility, eliminating the need for standard lymphodepletion and enabling durable restoration of immune tolerance and a potential cure. Supported by top-tier investors including The Column Group, NEVA SGR and Alexandria Venture Investments, and backed by grant funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), Tr1X aims to transform treatment paradigms from lifelong disease management to permanent cures. For more information, visit www.tr1x.bio.
Investor Contact:
Tr1X Investor Relations
investors@tr1x.bio
Media Contact:
Julie Normart
jnormart@realchemistry.com
