Keryx Biopharmaceuticals Appoints Two New Board Members
June 21 2016 - 8:00AM
Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq:KERX), a biopharmaceutical
company focused on bringing innovative medicines to people with
renal disease, today announced that Michael Heffernan and Jodie
Morrison joined its board of directors, effective immediately.
These new appointments bring the size of the company’s board to
eight members and reflect achievement of Keryx’s commitment to add
further complementary expertise to its Board.
“We are very pleased to further strengthen our
board,” said Greg Madison, chief executive officer of Keryx
Biopharmaceuticals. “Michael and Jodie round out the expertise of
our directors by bringing a broad range of operational and
leadership experience in several therapeutic areas with companies
at every stage of development. I believe we have an impressive and
well represented board to guide Keryx through the many stages of
Auryxia’s life cycle.”
Michael Heffernan is founder, president, and chief
executive officer of Collegium Pharmaceutical, a publicly
traded drug development company targeting chronic pain. Jodie
Morrison is president and chief executive officer of Tokai
Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company
focused on developing and commercializing innovative medicines for
hormonally driven diseases, with an investigational medicine for
prostate cancer in Phase 3 development. Michael will serve on
Keryx’s compensation committee and its nominating and governance
committee. Jodie will serve on the company’s audit committee and
research and development committee.
“Keryx has a unique opportunity ahead, as it
continues to drive brand awareness and adoption of Auryxia® in
dialysis while working simultaneously on potential label expansion
for an additional indication,” said Mr. Heffernan. “I look forward
to sharing my experiences and insight to help guide the company
through this very important time.”
“Keryx is entering an important stage of the
company’s growth,” said Ms. Morrison. “I am thrilled to join the
board and serve alongside the other directors to help achieve
Keryx’s operational and development goals and advance its vision of
building a leading renal company.”
About Michael T. HeffernanMr.
Heffernan is the founder, president and CEO of Collegium
Pharmaceutical, Inc. He has more than 25 years of experience in the
pharmaceutical and related healthcare industries. He was previously
the founder, president and CEO of Onset Dermatologics, a
dermatology focused company that was spun out of Collegium to
create PreCision Dermatology and was sold to Valeant (2014). Mr.
Heffernan held prior positions as co-founder, president and CEO of
Clinical Studies Ltd., a pharmaceutical contract research
organization that was sold to PhyMatrix Corp and later served as
president and CEO of PhyMatrix. Mr. Heffernan began his career at
Eli Lilly and Company and served in numerous sales and marketing
roles. He has also been an advisor and investor in a number of
healthcare companies. His past board memberships include: TyRx
(sold to Medtronic), Cornerstone Therapeutics (sold to Chiesi),
Ocata Therapeutics (sold to Astellas), and PreCision Dermatology.
Mr. Heffernan is currently the chairman of the board for Veloxis
Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Heffernan earned his B.S. Degree in Pharmacy
from the University of Connecticut and is a Registered
Pharmacist.
About Jodie MorrisonMs. Morrison
has more than 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and
biotech industries, including extensive clinical development and
operational leadership. She has been at Tokai Pharmaceuticals for
approximately 10 years, and is currently the president and chief
executive officer and a member of its board of directors. Prior to
being appointed CEO in 2013, she served as Tokai’s chief operating
officer and head of clinical affairs. Notably, throughout her
tenure at Tokai she has led the company’s operational management
and its lead prostate cancer development program. Prior to joining
Tokai, Ms. Morrison was director of clinical operations and medical
affairs at Dyax Corporation. While at Dyax she built and led the
clinical development teams for two development programs: Kalbitor™
(hereditary angioedema) and DX-88 (cardiothoracic surgery). Before
joining Dyax, she held clinical management positions at Curis, Inc.
and Diacrin, Inc. Ms. Morrison has a B.A. in neuroscience from
Mount Holyoke College, business certification training from the MIT
Sloan School of Management Executive Program and clinical research
certification from Boston University School of Medicine.
About Keryx Biopharmaceuticals,
Inc.Keryx Biopharmaceuticals, with headquarters in Boston,
is focused on bringing innovative medicines to people with renal
disease. In December 2014, the company launched its first
FDA-approved medicine, Auryxia® (ferric citrate) in the United
States. In January 2014, ferric citrate was approved for use
in Japan, where it is being marketed as Riona® by Keryx's Japanese
partner, Japan Tobacco Inc. and Torii Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. In
September 2015, the European Commission granted European market
authorization for Fexeric® (ferric citrate coordination complex).
For more information about Keryx, please visit www.keryx.com.
Forward-Looking Statements Some of
the statements included in this press release may be
forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and
uncertainties. For those statements, we claim the protection of the
safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Among the factors that
could cause our actual results to differ materially are the
following: the risk that we may not be able to successfully market
Auryxia in the U.S. for patients with chronic kidney disease on
dialysis; the risk that the FDA may not concur with our
interpretation of our Phase 3 study results, supportive data,
conduct of the studies, or any other part of our regulatory
submission and could ultimately deny approval of the ferric citrate
for the treatment of iron deficiency anemia (IDA) in adults with
stage 3-5 non-dialysis dependent (NDD) chronic kidney disease
(CKD), and other risk factors identified from time to time in our
reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any
forward looking statements set forth in this press release speak
only as of the date of this press release. We do not undertake to
update any of these forward-looking statements to reflect events or
circumstances that occur after the date hereof. This press release
and prior releases are available at http://www.keryx.com. The
information found on our website is not incorporated by reference
into this press release and is included for reference purposes
only.
KERYX BIOPHARMACEUTICALS CONTACTS:
Amy Sullivan
Vice President, Corporate Development and Public Affairs
T: 617.466.3519
amy.sullivan@keryx.com
Lora Pike
Senior Director, Investor Relations
T: 617.466.3511
lora.pike@keryx.com
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