John J. Alam M.D. Joins Inhibitex as Senior Medical Advisor
Released: 04/01/10 09:00 AM EDTInhibitex, Inc. (Nasdaq: INHX) today announced that John J. Alam, M.D. has joined Inhibitex as its Senior Medical Advisor. Dr. Alam was formerly Executive Vice President, Medicines Development and Chief Medical Officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Incorporated. Dr. Alam will be responsible for formulating and directing the clinical and regulatory strategies for Inhibitex's development programs, including FV-100, which is in Phase II clinical development for the treatment of shingles, and INX-189, a nucleotide polymerase inhibitor in development for the treatment of chronic hepatitis C infections (HCV).
"John's in-depth expertise in antiviral drug development will be a valuable addition to our leadership team," stated Russell H. Plumb, President and CEO of Inhibitex, Inc. "In particular, his recent experience with the clinical development of telaprevir, a first-in-class HCV protease inhibitor that is currently in several pivotal Phase III clinical trials, will be highly relevant as we advance INX-189 into clinical development."
Dr. Alam is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Biomedical Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). From 1997 to 2008, he held various positions of increasing responsibility at Vertex, and was responsible for leading telaprevir from preclinical to Phase III development. From 1991 to 1997, Dr. Alam held a number of positions with Biogen, Inc., including Director of Medical Research and Program Executive for Avonex® (interferon beta-1a for multiple sclerosis).
Prior to joining the life science industry, Dr. Alam completed an internal medicine residency at The Brigham and Women's Hospital and a research fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He holds an M.D. from Northwestern University Medical School and a S.B. in chemical engineering from MIT.
About Inhibitex
Inhibitex, Inc., headquartered in Alpharetta, Georgia, is a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing products to prevent and treat serious infectious diseases. The Company's pipeline includes FV-100 and INX-189, as well as additional HCV nucleotide polymerase inhibitors in preclinical development. The Company has also licensed the use of its proprietary MSCRAMM® protein platform to Pfizer for the development of staphylococcal vaccines. Pfizer recently initiated patient recruitment for a 408-patient, randomized, double-blind Phase I clinical trial to evaluate the safety, tolerability and immunogenicity of a 3-antigen Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) vaccine in healthy adults. For additional information about the Company, please visit www.inhibitex.com.
Inhibitex® and MSCRAMM® are registered trademark of Inhibitex, Inc. Avonex® is a registered trademark of Biogen Idec, Inc.
Contacts:
Inhibitex, Inc.
Russell H. Plumb, 678-746-1136
Chief Executive Officer
[email protected]
or
The Trout Group
Lee M. Stern, CFA, 646-378-2922
[email protected]