Allosterix Drug-Design and Discovery, Expands Its Scientific Advisory Board and Appoints Prof. Ciechanover, Dr. Havron, Prof. Fishman and Prof. Fridkin
Allosterix, Allosteric Enzyme Inhibitors Drug-Design: Highly Specific, Potent and Drug-able Enzyme Inhibitors
REHOVOT, Israel--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 28, 2010 - Allosterix Ltd, the Israeli biotechnology company specializing in the design of enzyme inhibitors, today announced the appointment of Professor Aharon Ciechanover, the Nobel Prize laureate; Dr. Avri Havron, Prolor Biotech (AMEX, TASE), CEO; Prof. Pnina Fishman, Can-Fite Biopharma (TASE) CEO; and Prof. Mati Fridkin, peptide chemist expert, The Weizmann Institute, to its Scientific Advisory Board. This further strengthens the Board that includes Dr. Ettie Pirak, the co-inventor of Erbitux; Dr. Raz Zarivach, Ben-Gurion University; and Dr. Ilan Volovitz, Sourasky Medical Center.
Professor Ciechanover MD, DSc, is the Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry (2004), and the recipient of the Israel Prize in Biological Research (2000) and of the prestigious Lasker Award (2000). Professor Ciechanover is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Technion. Among many esteemed bodies, Prof. Ciechanover is a member of the Israeli National Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (Foreign Associate) and the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of the USA (Foreign Associate). Professor Ciechanover was a co-discoverer of the ubiquitin system, a proteins that marks other proteins for destruction and are an important focus of cancer research.
Dr. Havron, a 30-year veteran of the biotechnology industry, was a member of the founding team and Director of Research and Development of Interpharm; Dr. Havron participated in the development of several therapeutic proteins currently in the market, including BioTropin, Bio-Hep-B and Rebif.
Prof. Fishman is the scientific founder of Can-Fite and was previously a professor of Life Sciences and headed the Laboratory of Clinical and Tumor Immunology at the Rabin Medical Center. Her scientific work was the foundation on which Can-Fite was built. She was also involved in the establishment of several life sciences technology start-ups.
Prof. Mati Fridkin, a leader in the field of peptide and protein chemistry at The Weizmann Institute of Science, was a member of the editorial board of a number of important peptide chemistry journals as well as the American and European Peptide Society, and other professional societies. Prof. Fridkin was a developer of synthetic peptides structure and function and development of peptide-related drugs for over 20 years.
Dr. Solomon, Allosterix' CEO, commented, "We are happy to have these eminent scientists and CEOs join our advisory board. Allosterix now has an outstanding group of advisors who bring scientific and business experience to our drug design platform technology."
Mr. Vunsh, Allosterix' co-founder, commented, "It's all about people and hard work. In order to recruit these top notch scientific and business leaders, we went through a very comprehensive due diligence process. We are pleased to meet the criteria for their high standards."
Allosterix is developing novel platform technology for the design of allosteric drug-able enzyme inhibitors. The company provides enzyme inhibitors design technology for use in any target enzyme for collaborative partners. Allosterix technology will allow the design of allosteric, specific, potent and drug-able generation of enzyme inhibitors. Allosterix also pursues in-house drug design projects on proprietary targets with a view to identifying novel peptides based small molecule therapeutics.
Allosterix proved its capabilities by designing and developing inhibitors to two much industry sought target enzymes: TNF-α Converting Enzyme (TACE), which is over active in autoimmune pathologies and EGFR Cancers; and β secretase cleaving Enzyme 1 (BACE1), which is over active in Alzheimer's.
Contact: Allosterix Ltd
Mr. Omer Vunsh, MBA, Business development
Telephone: 972-8-9344971
Cellular: 972-523-892114
[email protected]
www.allosterix-pharma.com