Lava Therapeutics announced it has raised EUR 16 million in its first major institutional financing round from an investor syndicate led by Gilde Healthcare and Versant Ventures with additional support from MRL Ventures Fund (MRLV), joining founder investors Lupus Ventures and Biox Biosciences. LAVA also announced the appointment of Paul Parren, PhD, as Executive Vice President and Head of Research & Development. Dr. Parren joins the company as an internationally recognized antibody drug innovator and developer. As part of the financing, LAVA established a Supervisory Board including Stefan Luzi, PhD of Gilde Healthcare, Guido Magni, MD, PhD, of Versant Ventures and Reza Halse, PhD of MRLV. They join Erik van den Berg, who will serve as Chairman of the Board, and biotech entrepreneur Jan van der Hoeven. Paul Parren joins Lava Therapeutics with 30 years of experience in antibody science and drug development. For the past 16 years he served as Genmab’s Head of Preclinical Development and Research, translating antibody biology successfully into immunotherapies from discovery to the clinic, including approved therapeutic antibodies ofatumumab and daratumumab, as well as establishing validated antibody platform technologies. Dr. Parren is a Professor of Molecular Immunology at the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, the Netherlands, board member of The Antibody Society and was an Associate Professor at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He holds a PhD in Molecular Immunology from the University of Amsterdam.