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Management
The current
management team includes:
Nicolas
Druz, Chief Executive Officer, Chairman of the Board
Mr. Nicolas Druz joined Pharmagenesis, Inc. in 1993 as advisor to the Chairman, and became
a member of the Board in 1995. He was
appointed CEO in 1996 by Pharmagenesis' founder, Mr. Tih-Wu Wang, and led the company
during its successful development of PG2, TriptoSar and WilGraf. In 2003, Mr. Druz became Executive Chairman of
Pharmagenesis, Inc. Mr. Druz is also
President and CEO of Europe Journal, President of Jeanne Lanvin SA, President and CEO of
Euro Pacific Communication, Board member of Société des Papiers de Presse. He represents the private interests of the Wang
family in various institutions, like W.B.A., Inc., a hotel company located in Paris. Mr. Druz is Managing Director of Harmonie SA, Vice
Chairman of Tianjin Hualong Pharmaceutical, Board Member of PhytoHealth, and Director of
EcoPharm limited.
John H. Musser, Ph.D., Chief Operating Officer
Before
joining Pharmagenesis, Inc. in 1995, Dr. Musser was Vice President of Chemistry and a
Corporate Officer at Glycomed. There he built
and led Chemical R&D with a focus on carbohydrates.
Product candidates included ilomastat, a matrix metalloproteinase inhibitor to
treat ocular ulceration which reached Phase III clinical trials, astenose, a heparin
derivative to treat restenosis following balloon angioplasty with an IND filed in 1994,
and celadin, a pre-IND sialyl Lewis X analog to treat sepsis. An IPO was filed in 1991 employing Montgomery
Securities. Corporate collaborations included
Eli Lilly, Genentech and Sankyo. Glycomed
merged with Ligand Pharmaceutical in 1995. From
1982 to 1991, Dr. Musser was at Wyeth first as Manager than as Director of Medicinal
Chemistry. His department initiated the
rapamycin immune suppression chemical research program.
Rapamycin (sirolimus, Rapamune® ) is now a product used to treat renal transplant
rejection. Also during this time, he was an
inventor of Wy-50295 and ritolukast both anti-asthma agents which reached IND status. From 1978-1982, Dr Musser was a Group Leader at
USV Pharmaceutical Corporation, (currently Aventis via Rhône Poulenc Rorer). There he discovered quazolast, and RHC5901 both of
which entered clinical trials. Dr. Musser
started his career at the Upjohn Company after receiving a Doctor of Philosophy degree in
Chemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1976. He served on 3 Editorial Advisory Boards, authored
68 publications and invented 87 US patents.
John M. Fidler,
Ph.D., Vice President, Biology
Dr. Fidler joined Pharmagenesis, Inc. in 1993 as Principal Scientist, then served as
Senior Research Fellow before his current position. He
directed the Pharmacology effort in immunosuppression and cancer, providing IND-enabling
efficacy studies for PG490-88 in cancer and coordinating pharm/tox/PK efforts. From 1988 to 1992, Dr. Fidler was Scientist and
then Senior Scientist at Cetus/Chiron, where he was Group Leader in Preclinical Studies in Autoimmunity and
directed enabling efficacy and tox/PK studies for preparation of an IND in Graft-vs.-host
disease. Prior to that, Dr. Fidler
established and directed the Cellular and Molecular Immunoregulation Research Group at
Lederle Labs (now Wyeth) to develop and conduct in vitro and whole animal assays
for immunoregulatory drug activities. He led
the characterization of the cellular mechanism of mitoxantrone immunoregulatory activity. Dr. Fidler was an Assistant Member of the
Immunpathology Dept. of the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, from 1976-1982,
after conducting post-doctoral research at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical
Research in Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Fidler
received his B.A. with Biology Departmental Honors from The Johns Hopkins University and
his Ph.D. in Immunology from Purdue University.
Jinhua An, Ph.D.,
DVM, Chief Representative - China
Dr.
An joined Pharmagenesis in 1994 and continuously rose in responsibility to his current
position. He directed the PG2 chemistry
research and development efforts in China that resulted in a successful NDA in 2001. Also, Dr. An has assumed all PG490 supply
responsibility in China. Recently, he was
appointed Vice President of Technology at our Tianjin Hualong Pharmaceutical JV. From 1991-1994, he was a Postdoctoral Research
Associate at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens,
Georgia, working with Professors Peter Albersheim and Alan Darvill. While there, he collaborated with a number of
pharmaceutical companies on carbohydrate-based new drug development, and also conducted
research on complex polysaccharide structure identification. From 1985-1990,
he was a Research Assistant at the Department of Biochemistry, Oklahoma State University,
Stillwater, Oklahoma, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Mort. There, he did research on purification,
derivatization, and structural characterization of oligo- and polysaccharides from plant
cell walls. In 1990, Dr. An received a Ph.D.
in Biochemistry form Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, Oklahoma and in 1983 he earned
a DVM degree in Veterinary Medicine from the Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang,
China.
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