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Our mission is to develop a transformational new treatment that improves the lives of people living with vitiligo

ABOUT US

Villaris Therapeutics is a preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel antibody therapeutics for the treatment of vitiligo.

A recent discovery revealed that an immune pathway, initiated by IL-15 signaling and its formation of autoimmune memory T cells (TRM), was responsible for the return of vitiligo usually soon after stopping treatments.  Targeting this pathway therapeutically was very effective at reversing the disease in a mouse model of vitiligo with long-lasting results.

Villaris Therapeutics is developing a novel humanized anti-IL-15R antibody to target depletion of TRM for the effective and durable treatment of vitiligo and other tissue-specific autoimmune diseases that also involve these cells.

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“People with vitiligo come to my clinic devastated by their disease and asking in earnest for a better treatment than what we currently have to offer. We created Villaris to provide this option to them and others like them all over the world.”
Dr. John Harris
dermatologist, scientist,
and founder of Villaris Therapeutics

OUR TEAM

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John Harris, M.D., Ph.D.

Founder
Bio
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Andrea Epperly, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer,
President and Board Member
Bio
VIEW FULL TEAM

John Harris, M.D., Ph.D.

Founder

Dr. Harris is the Vice Chair of Dermatology and Director of the Vitiligo Clinic and Research Center at UMass Medical School in Worcester, Massachusetts. He is a dermatologist and physician-scientist, caring for patients in a vitiligo specialty clinic and running a large NIH-funded research laboratory focused on understanding what causes vitiligo in order to develop new treatments. His group integrates basic, translational, and clinical research strategies to accomplish this. As a result, early clinical trials in vitiligo look promising, and more are being developed. While he has served as a consultant for many pharmaceutical and biotech companies, Villaris is the first company that he has founded

Andrea Epperly, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer,
President and Board Member

Andrea Epperly is Chief Executive Officer, President and a member of the Board of Directors of Villaris Therapeutics.  She has over 20 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience.  She began her career at GlaxoSmithKline in research and development where she led discovery and development teams in oncology, metabolic diseases and dermatology and served as department head of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics.  She then joined GSK’s Global Business Development team where she was responsible for pharmaceutical licensing and corporate development and closed several successful major partnering deals.  Most recently, she was responsible for project leadership and management of preclinical and clinical-stage programs across a group of portfolio companies at Kalika Biosciences.  Dr. Epperly earned her Bachelor’s degree and Ph.D. in chemistry from Virginia Tech.