Anchor Therapeutics Adds Global Experts to Board of Directors and Scientific Advisory Board

 

-- Robert Kamen as Director and Thue Schwartz and Graeme Milligan as SAB Members Bring Expertise and Leadership to Key Strategic Positions --

 

Cambridge, MA - July 21, 2010 - Anchor Therapeutics today announced the appointment of Robert Kamen, Ph.D., past President of Abbott Bioresearch Center, to its Board of Directors. Anchor is developing a new class of therapeutic candidates, called pepducins, to allosterically modulate G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) on the inside surface of the cell membrane, representing a novel approach to this important target class.

 

"Bob's expertise and knowledge is well aligned with Anchor’s driving mission to discover and develop novel GPCR-targeted therapeutics," said Frederick Jones, M.D., President and CEO of Anchor. "We welcome Bob to our Board of Directors and will look to benefit from his more than 20 years of biotechnology industry leadership and his experience with development programs, such as Humira®, that have successfully translated promising science into novel therapeutics. Bob's contributions to the Board will be extremely valuable as Anchor advances its projects toward clinical stage development."

 

Dr. Kamen is a consultant to the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. He is the past President of Abbott Bioresearch Center, Abbott Laboratories’ immunology/oncology drug discovery and biologics production unit in Worcester, Massachusetts and also served on the Abbott Pharmaceuticals Executive Management Committee. Dr. Kamen joined Abbott subsequent to its acquisition of the BASF/Knoll pharmaceutical business in 2001 after serving as BASF Bioresearch Corporation’s President for ten years. He previously played a leadership role at the Genetics Institute, Inc. (later acquired by Wyeth and now Pfizer), where he held a series of increasingly senior management positions. In 2005, he co-founded BioAssets Development Corporation, a biotherapeutics company focusing on spinal diseases, and currently serves as its chairman. He also serves as a member of other biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical company boards and advises various venture capital partnerships on investments in biotech. Dr. Kamen graduated from Amherst College with an A.B. (summa cum laude) in biophysics and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University.

Anchor today also announced the appointments of Graeme Milligan, Ph.D., F.R.S.E., Professor at the University of Glasgow, and Thue Schwartz, M.D., D.M.Sc., Professor at the University of Copenhagen, to its Scientific Advisory Board.

 

Stephen Hunt, Ph.D., CSO and SVP Discovery Research at Anchor commented, "We are honored to welcome Graeme and Thue to Anchor’s Scientific Advisory Board. They are two of the most respected international thought leaders in GPCR research and will provide key guidance through the next phases of translating pepducin discovery and validation toward human clinical indications."

 

Dr. Milligan is currently Professor of Molecular Pharmacology and Joint Research Director, Faculty of Biomedical and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Scotland, and has been based at the University of Glasgow since 1986. Dr. Milligan is an author of over 400 papers on the structure, function, regulation and pharmacology of G protein-coupled receptors, G proteins and their interacting proteins, and his noted expertise spans biochemical and pharmacological analyses, cell and molecular biology and cell imaging and biophysical techniques.

 

Dr. Schwartz is presently Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at University of Copenhagen. He is an author of over 250 scientific publications, with recent important publications on GPCR molecule activation and on the role of GPR39, an important GPCR thought to be involved in regulating metabolic function. Dr. Schwartz has experience in both academia and in the pharmaceutical industry, previously serving as Vice President of Research at Novo Nordisk and as Chief Scientific Officer of the biotech company 7TM Pharma A/S. He is also a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences.

 

About Pepducin Technology

The pepducin technology platform is being used to develop novel, allosteric modulators for intractable G protein coupled receptor (GPCR) targets. Pepducins are composed of a short peptide derived from a GPCR intracellular loop linked to a lipid moiety. This structure allows pepducins to anchor in the cell membrane and target the GPCR protein via a unique intracellular allosteric mechanism. The pepducin technology platform represents an entirely new paradigm for modulating GPCR signal transduction from the inside surface of the cell membrane, potentially transforming the scope of GPCR therapeutics to treat a much wider range of serious illnesses. Pepducin technology is licensed exclusively to Anchor Therapeutics in Cambridge, Mass.

 

About Anchor Therapeutics

Anchor Therapeutics is developing first-in-class pepducin drug candidates, novel molecules that can selectively target the intracellular domains of G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) to allosterically modulate GPCR signaling. For more information, please visit www.anchortx.com.

 

 Humira® is a registered trademark of Abbott Laboratories.

 

Anchor Business Development Contact:

John Tagliamonte

617-715-1999

 

Media Contact:

Jacqui Miller

(781) 235-3060

MacDougall Biomedical Communications