PureTech taps ex-Teva CEO to run its new respiratory unit Celea
Posted: 13 August 2025 | Dominic Tyer (European Pharmaceutical Review) | No comments yet
Sven Dethlefs will be tasked with driving its deupirfenidone programme in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
PureTech Health has set up Celea Therapeutics, appointing former Teva North America CEO Sven Dethlefs to lead the new respiratory disease focused company.
Celea’s lead programme at launch is deupirfenidone (LYT-100), a phase II candidate being studied as a treatment for the rare, progressive and fatal lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF).
The drug also holds promise across a number of other fibrotic and inflammatory lung conditions, PureTech said.
Celea will be led by Sven Dethlefs, who joined PureTech in 2024 as its Entrepreneur in Residence and has been driving the deupirfenidone programme. Prior to that he spent 16 years at Teva Pharmaceuticals, most recently as CEO of Teva North America.
Dethlefs said: “Bringing meaningful innovation to patients with serious diseases has been a consistent theme throughout my career, and I believe deupirfenidone has the potential to be a true turning point in the treatment of IPF.
“The strength of the clinical data, combined with the team and mission behind Celea, make this a uniquely compelling opportunity. I’m excited to lead the next phase of development as we work to deliver a new standard of care for people living with IPF and other debilitating lung conditions.”
A phase IIb study of deupirfenidone was completed in December 2024 and PureTech expects to meet with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to discuss those results and its planned phase III clinical trial design by the end of the third quarter of 2025.
Deupirfenidone (LYT-100) is a deuterated form of pirfenidone, with the process of selectively replacing protium hydrogen isotope atoms with deuterium hydrogen isotope atoms potentially bringing safety and tolerability benefits.
Pirfenidone, which was approved in 2011 by European regulators as Roche’s Esbriet, is one of the two FDA-approved IPF treatments, alongside Boehringer Ingelheim’s Ofev (nintedanib), which gained its European licence in 2015. Generic versions of both branded drugs are now available in the region.
