MELBOURNE: Arovella Therapeutics Ltd. (ASX: ALA) has appointed Dr. Nicole Van Der Weerden as chief executive officer, effective Nov. 4, 2026, the company announced.

Van Der Weerden, who joined Arovella in 2023 as chief operating officer, said she is proud to lead the clinical-stage biotechnology company at a pivotal time.

“I have great confidence in our platform, our strategy and the team behind it, and I am excited about what we will achieve together,” she said. “I sincerely thank the Board and the entire Arovella team for their support and commitment.”

Arovella Chairman David Williams said he has worked closely with Van Der Weerden for six months and praised her leadership, scientific knowledge and willingness to collaborate on business development.

“The Board is particularly happy with the results of the last 6 months being the successful manufacture of product for dosing, the signing of 6 hospitals for our trial, the dosing of the first patient and the great animal data in tumours,” Williams said. “I am very optimistic about what we can do together in the short term.”

Van Der Weerden’s salary will be 401,700 Australian dollars plus superannuation. She will be eligible for short-term and long-term incentive bonuses of up to 40% of the salary paid for each incentive. No other employment terms were changed.

Before joining Arovella, Van Der Weerden spent more than 18 years at Hexima Ltd. in roles including COO, CEO and non-executive director, where she was responsible for advancing the company’s lead drug candidate through preclinical and clinical development. She holds a PhD in biochemistry and an MBA from Melbourne Business School and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Arovella is focused on developing its invariant natural killer T cell therapy platform, licensed from Imperial College London, to treat blood cancers, solid tumors and autoimmune disease. Its lead product, ALA-101, consists of CAR19-iNKT cells modified to target CD19, an antigen found on the surface of numerous cancer types. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has accepted the investigational new drug application for ALA-101, which is being developed as an allogeneic cell therapy.

The company is also expanding into solid tumor treatment through its CLDN18.2-targeting technology licensed from Sparx Group and plans to incorporate its IL-12-TM technology into its solid tumor programs.