Xenetic Biosciences Announces Appointment of Three Directors to the Board
August 14 2017 - 5:00PM
Business Wire
New Board appointments add drug development,
operational and strategic financial expertise
Xenetic Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: XBIO) (“Xenetic” or the
“Company”), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on
the discovery, research and development of next-generation biologic
drugs and novel orphan oncology therapeutics, announced today that
it has appointed Adam Logal, James E. Callaway, Ph.D., and Dmitry
Genkin to the Company’s Board of Directors to fill the vacancies
created by the resignations of three prior members of the Company’s
Board of Directors.
Adam Logal joins the Xenetic Board of Directors with over 15
years of experience in the biopharmaceuticals industry. Since April
2014, Mr. Logal has served as Senior Vice President, Chief
Financial Officer, Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer of OPKO
Health, Inc. and from March 2007 until April 2014 served as OPKO’s
Vice President of Finance, Chief Accounting Officer and Treasurer.
Mr. Logal is a director of VBI Vaccines, Inc. and serves as its
Audit Committee Chairman. Prior to joining OPKO, Mr. Logal served
in various financial management roles at Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, a
commercial stage biopharmaceutical company. Mr. Logal is a
strategic finance executive with extensive experience in SEC
compliance and reporting, domestic and international finance,
strategic planning, cash flow management, budgeting, taxation,
treasury and business development.
James Eric Callaway, Ph.D., joins the Xenetic Board of Directors
with over 30 years of experience in the execution of product
development operations for biotherapeutics. Dr. Callaway has an
established track record of achievement against challenging
technologies and aggressive project timelines. He currently serves
as a Corporate Strategy Consultant at Callaway Innovations. Dr.
Callaway is a seasoned CEO within the venture-backed biotech
community and over the course of his career he has built and
operated two companies, transforming each from research companies
to clinical stage operating entities. Prior to these efforts, Dr.
Callaway held multiple senior leadership positions at Elan
Pharmaceuticals, including simultaneously acting as Head of
Development and overseeing the complex partnership with Wyeth
Pharmaceuticals in the Alzheimer’s disease immunotherapy program.
He has developed antibodies for a wide-range of therapeutic
applications over the past two decades, including treatments of
multiple sclerosis (Tysabri®: pharmaceutical development),
Alzheimer’s disease (bapineuzumab: Program Executive), and
blood-brain barrier transport, and has worked with the United
Stated Food and Drug Administration on multiple orphan drug
development programs.
Dmitry Genkin currently serves on the Company’s Scientific
Advisory Board and previously served on the Company’s Board of
Directors from 2004-2016. He has the Russian equivalent of an MD in
Internal Therapy and studied drug delivery under Professor Gregory
Gregoriadis at The School of Pharmacy, University of London in
1992, as well as the Department of Clinical Pharmacology at
Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm from 1992 until 1993. Since 1993,
Dr. Genkin has headed a number of Russia's largest pharmaceutical
companies including Pharmavit, which had 27% of the Russian
pharmaceutical market. In 1998, he was awarded the silver medal by
the Russian Natural Science Academy. Dr. Genkin is currently
Chairman of PJSC Pharmsynthez, a public company listed on the
Moscow Stock Exchange and Xenetic’s majority stockholder.
About Xenetic Biosciences
Xenetic Biosciences, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical
company focused on the discovery, research and development of
next-generation biologic drugs and novel orphan oncology
therapeutics. Xenetic's proprietary drug development platforms
include PolyXen™, which enables next-generation biologic drugs by
improving their half-life and other pharmacological properties.
Xenetic's lead investigational product candidates include oncology
therapeutic XBIO-101 (sodium cridanimod) for the treatment of
progesterone resistant endometrial cancer (“EC”), and a
polysialylated form of erythropoietin for the treatment of anemia
in pre-dialysis patients with chronic kidney disease.
Xenetic is party to an agreement with Baxalta US Inc. and
Baxalta AB (wholly owned subsidiaries of Shire plc) covering the
development of a novel series of polysialylated blood coagulation
factors. This collaboration relies on Xenetic's PolyXen technology
to conjugate polysialic acid (“PSA”) to therapeutic blood-clotting
factors, with the goal of improving the pharmacokinetic profile and
extending the active life of these biologic molecules. Shire is a
significant stockholder of the Company, having invested $10 million
in the Company during 2014. The agreement is an exclusive research,
development and license agreement which grants Shire a worldwide,
exclusive, royalty-bearing license to Xenetic's PSA patented and
proprietary technology in combination with Shire's proprietary
molecules designed for the treatment of blood and bleeding
disorders. The first program under this agreement was a next
generation Factor VIII, and this program was terminated by Shire
following a Phase 1/2 trial. Xenetic and Shire are currently
exploring whether to engage in further development of other blood
coagulation factors. Additionally, Xenetic has previously received
strategic investments from OPKO Health (Nasdaq: OPK), Serum
Institute of India Limited and PJSC Pharmsynthez.
Xenetic is also developing a broad pipeline of clinical
candidates for next-generation biologics and novel oncology
therapeutics in a number of orphan disease indications. For more
information, please visit the Company's website at
www.xeneticbio.com and connect on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and
Google+.
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