Cellzome hires Vice President Therapeutics to strengthen Preclinical Capabilities
Cambridge, United Kingdom, 14th September 2010 - Cellzome announced today the appointment of Alan P. Watt, PhD, MBA, to the senior management team of the company as Vice President Therapeutics.
The hire follows Cellzome's announcement earlier this year of a second large collaboration in inflammatory diseases with GSK, this time in the field of epigenetics.
Dr Watt joins Cellzome from GSK, where he was initially hired as Director and Head of Preclinical Development for the Neurology and GI Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery (CEDD). In 2008 he became Vice President of the newly formed Immuno-Inflammation CEDD, sharing responsibility for the design of the II-CEDD's project portfolio and its first 3-year business plan. He formed and led a research team of 60 scientists in innate immunity drug discovery at GSK's Upper Providence (Pennsylvania, USA) site. Previous to GSK, Alan held various positions at Merck Sharp & Dohme, starting as Medicinal Chemist, moving into Analytical Chemistry and finally leading the Drug Metabolism department as Senior Director until he left in 2006. Alan obtained his Chemistry degree at the University of Southampton and did his PhD during his time at Merck in Drug Metabolism. His interest in leadership and management led him to complete an MBA course also while at Merck.
Tim Edwards, CEO of Cellzome said: "We are delighted that Alan has joined Cellzome. In his 25 years of experience in the industry he has delivered numerous development candidates into the clinic. His experience will help us to fully leverage our chemical proteomics platform."
Dr Alan Watt, Vice President Therapeutics said: "I am very excited about the possibilities at Cellzome. The company combines first rate technology with strong commercial credentials. I look forward to being part of the team that turns the high science into development candidates."
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For more information please contact:
Cellzome:
Tim Edwards
Chief Executive Officer
Tel: +49 (0) 6221-137 57-100
[email protected]
Media contact:
Hogarth Partnership
Sarah MacLeod
Tel: +44 (0) 207 357 9477
About Cellzome
Cellzome is a privately-owned drug discovery and development company, and a leader in the use of chemical proteomics technologies to identify a new generation of selective drug candidates.
Our pipeline of small-molecule therapeutics is driven by KinobeadsTM, a proprietary technology for screening and profiling kinases in their physiological context. We have developed a new technology, called EpisphereTM to address epigenetic targets in disease-specific protein complexes. Our goal is to identify oral therapeutics for inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and inflammatory bowel disease.
Cellzome has two strategic alliances with GSK to discover and develop drugs to treat inflammatory diseases, the first in the field of kinase-targeted therapeutics and the second in the field of epigenetics.
Cellzome's holding company is domiciled in the US and it employs about 90 people at its two R&D laboratories in Cambridge, UK and Heidelberg, Germany. To learn more about Cellzome, please visit the website: www.cellzome.com.