Shaping the Future of Regenerative Medicine

Our mission – Cure the incurable

Pluripotent stem cell (PSC) therapies provide hope to patients with incurable diseases. But current approaches to bringing them to market are challenging.

Development is risky and often poorly planned, manufacturing processes are unpredictable and costly, and income models are unreliable.

That’s where Alder Therapeutics comes in.

We are on a bold mission to bring PSC developed therapies to the benefit of patients.

Our history

Officially founded in 2022, the vision of Alder Therapeutics took root a decade earlier. Our co-founder, Kristian Tryggvason, motivated by a discussion with his father, Professor Karl Tryggvason, and a belief in the untapped potential of laminin technology, set the stage for what would become a transformative force in pluripotent cell therapy.

Fast forward to 2022, when the data from animal studies clearly showed the benefit of the photoreceptor cell differentiation and cardiac cell differentiation methods, which had been further developed by Professor Tryggvason with the support of Duke-NUS and other external parties.

It was then that Alder Therapeutics materialized.  Kristian, together with Stijn Heessen and Ricardo Baptista attracted the attention of Linc and Flerie. Early in 2023, our team licensed the technology from Duke-NUS, successfully transferred the manufacturing process to a CDMO, and generated innovative analytical methods that further bolstered our operations.

Come September 2023, we ambitiously aim to secure funding to take our groundbreaking ALD01 eye project to Phase I. Looking beyond, 2024 will usher in a new phase of rigorous verification studies and the initiation of GLP Tox studies, paving the way for a landmark clinical trial in 2026.

But Alder Therapeutics’ journey is more than a recount of milestones. It's a testament to our dedication to medical innovation, patient outcome, and our enduring commitment to cure the incurable.

Our unique approach: the AlderEdge

Drawing on extensive academic and commercial cell therapy experience, we work in accordance with the AlderEdge philosophy, which focuses on de-risking cell therapy development by keeping the commercial product in mind from the start.

Any cell therapy program progressed according to the AlderEdge principles will consider critical determinants of success from the get-go:

  • Manufacturing. Right from the start we de-risk our manufacturing processes to be robust and scalable ensuring safe and affordable treatments
  • Safety and efficacy. We test our products early in suitable animal disease models
  • Commercial viability. To better gauge return on investment, we estimate the potential target market for each product, as well as commercial costs of manufacturing
  • Operational agility. By working virtually and in an agile way, we can tap into cell therapy expertise anywhere in the world, ensuring we can develop and deliver safe, affordable and efficacious therapies that adhere to QbD principles

In this way, we streamline development and manufacturing, and maximize the chances of program success which benefits patients and our investors.

Our promising stem cell therapy pipeline

Using the AlderEdge™ methodology, we’re progressing two game-changing allogeneic stem cell therapies through development — the first for the treatment of Retinitis Pigmentosa and a second for the treatment of heart failure.

Both candidates are backed by promising, high-quality preclinical data. We are on track to bring our lead therapy to first-in-human trials in 2026.

Find out more

Our mission – Cure the incurable

Pluripotent stem cell (PSC) therapies provide hope to patients with incurable diseases. But current approaches to bringing them to market are challenging.

Development is risky and often poorly planned, manufacturing processes are unpredictable and costly, and income models are unreliable.

That’s where Alder Therapeutics comes in.

We are on a bold mission to bring PSC developed therapies to the benefit of patients.

Our history

Officially founded in 2022, the vision of Alder Therapeutics took root a decade earlier. Our co-founder, Kristian Tryggvason, motivated by a discussion with his father, Professor Karl Tryggvason, and a belief in the untapped potential of laminin technology, set the stage for what would become a transformative force in pluripotent cell therapy.

Fast forward to 2022, when the data from animal studies clearly showed the benefit of the photoreceptor cell differentiation and cardiac cell differentiation methods, which had been further developed by Professor Tryggvason with the support of Duke-NUS and other external parties.

It was then that Alder Therapeutics materialized.  Kristian, together with Stijin Heessen and Ricardo Baptista attracted the attention of Linc and Flerie. Early in 2023, our team licensed the technology from Duke-NUS, successfully transferred the manufacturing process to a CDMO, and generated innovative analytical methods that further bolstered our operations.

Come September 2023, we ambitiously aim to secure funding to take our groundbreaking ALD01 eye project to Phase I. Looking beyond, 2024 will usher in a new phase of rigorous verification studies and the initiation of GLP Tox studies, paving the way for a landmark clinical trial in 2026.

But Alder Therapeutics’ journey is more than a recount of milestones. It's a testament to our dedication to medical innovation, patient patient outcome, and our enduring commitment to cure the incurable.

Our unique approach: the AlderEdge

Drawing on extensive academic and commercial cell therapy experience, we work in accordance with the AlderEdge philosophy, which focuses on de-risking cell therapy development by keeping the commercial product in mind from the start.

Any cell therapy program progressed according to the AlderEdge principles will consider critical determinants of success from the get-go:

  • Manufacturing. Right from the start we de-risk our manufacturing processes to be robust and scalable ensuring safe and affordable treatments
  • Safety and efficacy. We test our products early in suitable animal disease models
  • Commercial viability. To better gauge return on investment, we estimate the potential target market for each product, as well as commercial costs of manufacturing
  • Operational agility. By working virtually and in an agile way, we can tap into cell therapy expertise anywhere in the world, ensuring we can develop and deliver safe, affordable and efficacious therapies that adhere to QbD principles

In this way, we streamline development and manufacturing, and maximize the chances of program success which benefits patients and our investors.

Our promising stem cell therapy pipeline

Using the AlderEdge™ methodology, we’re progressing two game-changing allogeneic stem cell therapies through development — one for the treatment of Retinitis Pigmentosa and one for the treatment of heart failure.

Both candidates are backed by promising, high-quality preclinical data.

We are on track to bring our lead therapies to first-in-human trials in 2026.

Find out more

Meet the team shaping the future of regenerative medicine

Alder's industry-renowned team has decades of expertise in the scientific, technical and commercial aspects of bringing game-changing allogeneic cell therapies to market.
We blend rigorous academic training, cell therapy research excellence, and deep commercial know-how, with an impressive track record of success.

Kristian Tryggvason, Ph.D., MBA

CEO & Founder

Kristian is a fearless and resilient business leader with a flair for selling great ideas and building exceptional teams. More than a decade of experience in the cell therapy field has seen him found a successful cell therapy reagents company, as well as license a promising cell therapy product to a large pharma company.
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Stijn Heessen, Ph.D.

Chief Operations Officer

Stijn brings a unique combination of extensive scientific research experience and sharp business acumen to the Alder team, crafted over more than 14 years in senior and global business development positions in the pharmaceutical sector.
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Professor Dominik Fischer, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor

Professor Dominik Fischer is an Ophthalmic Surgeon at the Oxford Eye Hospital and full Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Oxford. He is also Professor of Ophthalmology at the Centre for Ophthalmology Tübingen, Germany and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
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Dr Gerard Boink, M.D., Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor

Gerard Boink is a cardiologist at the Amsterdam UMC Heart Centre and holds an MSc in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Amsterdam, in addition to MD and PhD degrees. Dr Boink directs a translational cell and gene therapy group that focuses on the development of novel arrhythmia treatments and represents Amsterdam Cardiovascular Sciences as their translational valorization officer.
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Professor Anders Kvanta, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor

Professor Anders Kvanta is a professor in Ophthalmology at the Karolinska Institute and Senior Consultant in Vitreoretinal Surgery at St. Erik Eye Hospital. He is a principal investigator and lead researcher in clinical gene therapy and stem-cell based projects on retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration.
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Dr. Lynn Yap, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Dr. Lynn Yap is assistant professor at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University and the National Heart Research Institute Singapore. She is the principal investigator and director of a regenerative cardiology and cardiometabolic medicine group, and co-inventor of the laminin platform technology underpinning Alder’s innovative cell therapy for heart failure.
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Dr. Hwee Goon Tay, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Dr. Hwee Goon Tay is an assistant professor at the Centre for Vision Research in DUKE-NUS Medical School, and co-inventor of the innovative photoreceptor differentiation method at the heart of Alder’s retinitis pigmentosa therapy. Her research group at DUKE-NUS focuses on making significant contributions to translational scientific research in regenerative medicine for retinal diseases.
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