NEWARK, Calif., June 8, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Protagonist
Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: PTGX) today announced the appointment
of Lewis T. "Rusty" Williams, M.D., Ph.D., President and Chief
Executive Officer of Five Prime Therapeutics, to the Protagonist
Board of Directors.
"Rusty is a highly accomplished leader in the healthcare sector
with an exceptional track record of both industry success and
academic excellence," said Dinesh V.
Patel, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of
Protagonist. "We will benefit from his deep-rooted insights and
experience as Protagonist continues to grow beyond a technology
platform company and into a mature drug development and
commercialization organization."
"I am incredibly impressed by Protagonist's peptide technology
platform that has rapidly generated two clinical stage assets and a
third pre-clinical asset that recently attracted a partnership with
Janssen," said Dr. Williams, M.D., Ph.D. "I look forward to
working with the Board to help the company achieve the full
potential of its versatile platform and develop innovative assets
to address unmet medical needs."
Dr. Williams founded Five Prime Therapeutics in December 2001 and has served as that company's
President and Chief Executive Officer since August 2011, as its Executive Chairman from
July 2003 to January 2012, and as Chairman of the Board since
March 2016. Previously, Dr. Williams
spent seven years at Chiron Corporation, a biopharmaceutical
company, now Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Inc., most recently
as its Chief Scientific Officer. He also served on Chiron's board
of directors from 1999 to 2001. Prior to joining Chiron, Dr.
Williams was a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and served
as director of the University's Cardiovascular Research Institution
and Daiichi Research Center. Dr. Williams also has served on the
faculties of Harvard Medical School and
Massachusetts General Hospital and
co-founded COR Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company focused
on cardiovascular disease. He is a member of the National Academy
of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences. Dr. Williams was previously a member of the boards of
directors of COR Therapeutics, Inc. and Beckman Coulter, Inc., each of which was a
public company. Dr. Williams received a B.S. from Rice University and an M.D. and a Ph.D. from
Duke University.
About Protagonist Therapeutics
Protagonist Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical
company with a proprietary technology platform which is utilized to
discover and develop novel peptide-based drugs to address
significant unmet medical needs. Its primary focus is on developing
potential first-in-class oral targeted therapy-based peptide drugs
that work by blocking biological pathways that are currently
targeted by marketed injectable antibody drugs. Protagonist's
initial lead peptide product candidates, PTG-100 and PTG-200, are
based on this approach, and the company believes these candidates
have the potential to transform the existing treatment paradigm for
inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), consisting primarily of
ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
PTG-100, a potential first-in-class oral peptide alpha-4-beta-7
integrin antagonist, is currently in a global Phase 2b clinical
trial for treatment of moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis.
PTG-200, a first-in-class oral Interleukin-23 receptor antagonist
for potential treatment of IBD, initially Crohn's disease, is
currently in pre-clinical development and is expected to enter a
Phase 1 clinical study in the second half of 2017. The company
recently announced it has entered into a worldwide collaboration
with Janssen Biotech to co-develop and commercialize PTG-200 for
all indications, including IBD.
In addition to PTG-100 and PTG-200, the company is developing an
injectable hepcidin mimetic PTG-300 as a potential orphan drug for
the treatment of rare diseases such as beta-thalassemia.
PTG-300 is currently being studied in a Phase 1 clinical trial.
Protagonist is headquartered in Newark, California with its pre-clinical and
clinical staff in California, and
discovery operations both in California and in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. For further
information, please visit http://www.protagonist-inc.com.
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SOURCE Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc.