K. Peter Hirth, Ph.D. Joins KineMed Board of Directors
EMERYVILLE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--KineMed, Inc. (www.kinemed.com) today announced that K. Peter Hirth, Ph.D. has joined KineMed's Board of Directors.
"We are privileged to have such a knowledgeable industry leader as Dr. Hirth join our Board"
Dr. Hirth brings over 25 years of biotechnology and pharmaceutical discovery and development experience to KineMed.
"We are privileged to have such a knowledgeable industry leader as Dr. Hirth join our Board," commented David Fineman, Chairman and CEO of KineMed. "Dr. Hirth's extensive scientific contributions and operational expertise make him a valuable addition to our Board of Directors. Further, his stellar pharmaceutical and drug development achievements and regulatory expertise promoting 'personalized medicine' will serve KineMed well as we continue to rapidly advance applications of our personal biology platform that guides decision making in drug development, diagnostic-drug pairings, and consumer wellness."
"KineMed is at an exciting development stage," said Dr. Hirth. "The company's kinetic biomarker platform allows individuals to take control of their health by providing measurement tools that enable educated decisions about personal health and wellness. KineMed holds a dominant intellectual property position, placing it at the forefront in unifying systems biology for decision making. I look forward to lending my experience and perspective to the management team as KineMed applies its broad platform to its innovative commercial offerings."
From 2001 to 2013 Dr. Hirth served as co-founder and CEO of Plexxikon, Inc., where he built a novel, structure-guided drug discovery platform, which over the last ten years, has brought several new chemical entities (NCEs) into the clinic in a variety of indications. The most advanced therapeutic from this portfolio is a V600E B-raf selective inhibitor that was FDA approved for metastatic melanoma together with a companion diagnostic and is sold under the brand name Zelboraf™. Plexxikon was acquired in April 2011 by Daiichi Sankyo.
Prior to Plexxikon, Dr. Hirth was President of Sugen, where he was instrumental in building the Company from its inception as well as advancing several kinase inhibitors through clinical trials in oncology including Sutent, which was the first Sugen product to reach the market for renal cell carcinoma. Sugen was acquired by Pharmacia Upjohn in 1999. Prior to Sugen, Dr. Hirth was a Vice President of Research at Boehringer Mannheim where he successfully led the company's erythropoietin program to approval in 1989. The product was sold under the name Recormon.
Before joining Boehringer Mannheim, Dr. Hirth was a research scientist with the Max Planck Institute, following the completion of his post-doctoral work at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Hirth received his Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Heidelberg University, Germany.
Dr. Hirth joins board members Robert E. Curry Ph.D., Partner at Latterell Venture Partners; James S. Manuso Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Astex Pharmaceuticals; Marc Hellerstein M.D., Ph.D., President and Chief Science Officer of KineMed; James Burden J.D., President of Dorset Capital; and David Fineman, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of KineMed.
About KineMed, Inc.
KineMed is a commercial stage company that is potentially transformative in drug development, personalized medicine, and wellness. KineMed's kinetic biomarkers of personal biology information guide health-related purchases and drug development decisions, transforming the $18B biomarker, $50B diagnostics, and the >$200B consumer wellness markets. This dynamic information comes from our proprietary mass spectrometric platform, providing the missing link between individuals and optimal health-related products and services in non-prescription wellness management, prescription medical needs and next generation drug development. These programs provide near, mid, and long-term revenues from patients, payors and developers.
KineMed has developed the first practically-useful systems biology technology that can be used directly in humans, with applications not only in drug discovery and development, but also in clinical diagnosis, personalized medicine and therapeutic monitoring, and consumer-wellness decisions. KineMed has three programs based on KineMed's personal biology information: Rx, Dx/Rx and Cx:
Therapeutic Drug Discovery and Development ("Rx")
Pharmaceutical discovery and development: Here, Co-development partnerships with KineMed lead to more efficient drug discovery and development to power R&D spend.
Prescription diagnostic tests and test/prescription drug pairings ("Dx/Rx")
Prescription diagnostics and diagnostic/drug pairings: The KineMed technology can be utilized by physicians to prescribe treatments, optimize dosing, predict drug toxicity, and recommend life-style choices for patients
Non-prescription tests for consumer wellness products ("Cx")
Consumer products: KineMed's non-prescription diagnostic tests link individuals and product providers to over-the-counter products and services
Our Proteome Dynamics and Virtual Biopsy techniques provide a unique marriage of broad screening capacity (hypothesis-free "-omics" interrogation of living systems) with functional significance (translational interpretability). KineMed's biomarkers are fully translational from animal to man, seamlessly harmonizing data across pre-clinical and clinical phases of development. This platform applies to the diagnosis and management of diseases that include fibrosis, neurodegeneration, metabolic, cardiovascular and cancers.
Over the past few years our advances in Proteome Dynamics and Virtual Biopsies have changed both textbook thought about diseases and the development path of several drug candidates. Notable accomplishments include:
Developing a "tachometer" of reverse cholesterol transport and metrics of plasma lipid dynamics
Transforming the pathogenic model of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL)
Developing the first blood-based biomarker of tissue fibrogenesis in humans
Generating the first accurate laboratory biomarker of muscle mass in humans
Creating the first diagnostic tests of disease-modifying processes in a neurodegenerative disease (Parkinson's Disease)
For more information about KineMed, please visit: http://www.kinemed.com
Contacts
KineMed Inc.
Ravi Kiron, Ph.D., MBA, 510-655-6525 ext. 105
Chief Business Officer
Cell: 650-224-3836
[email protected]