KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.,
Sept. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/
-- Trevena, Inc., (Trevena) a clinical stage pharmaceutical
company and a leader in the discovery and development of G-protein
coupled receptor (GPCR) biased ligands, today announced the
appointment of Roberto Cuca as senior vice president and chief
financial officer.
"We are delighted to have Roberto join Trevena at this pivotal
juncture in the company's development," said Maxine Gowen, Ph.D., president and chief
executive officer of Trevena. "Roberto's diverse experience in
effectively transitioning both private and public healthcare
companies through phases of rapid growth will be invaluable in
assisting Trevena through its corporate and strategic
evolution."
Mr. Cuca brings to Trevena nearly 20 years of experience in the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Most recently, he
served as Treasurer and Senior Vice President, Finance at Endo
Health Solutions Inc., a specialty healthcare company. Before that,
he was Director, Corporate and Business Development, at moksha8
Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a pharmaceutical company focused on emerging
markets. Mr. Cuca also worked at JPMorgan Chase & Co. as an
equity analyst covering U.S. pharmaceutical companies. He received
an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of The University of Pennsylvania, a J.D. from
Cornell Law School, an A.B. from
Princeton University and he is a CFA
charterholder.
"I am excited to join Trevena and work with its exceptional team
at a time of such great promise," said Mr. Cuca. "The company has
made significant progress in advancing its compounds into the
clinic, collaborating with world-class global pharmaceutical
companies and successfully securing financing to support the
development of its clinical programs. I look forward to
helping the company progress towards its next phase of
development."
About Biased Ligands
GPCRs are the targets of at least
one-third of modern medicinal products, and remain the predominant
class of targets under clinical evaluation. However,
traditional ligands either turn on, or turn off, all of the
signaling pathways engaged by a particular receptor, which can
result in efficacy limitations or undesirable adverse effects.
Trevena's expertise lies in engineering "biased ligands" that
activate only the beneficial signaling pathways downstream of a
GPCR to unlock new biology and avoid drug adverse effects.
About Trevena
Trevena, Inc. is a privately held,
clinical stage pharmaceutical company that has built a pipeline of
biased GPCR ligands to address unmet medical needs in
cardiovascular, pain and other CNS conditions. The company's
drug discovery technology is based on extensive research from the
laboratory of Nobel Prize winning scientist Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D. of Duke University Medical Center. The lead drug in
Trevena's portfolio, TRV027, is a first-in-class agent in Phase 2
testing for the treatment of acute heart failure. TRV027 is being
developed by Trevena under a recently announced collaborative
licensing option agreement with Forest Laboratories Inc. (NYSE:
FRX). Trevena's pipeline also includes a clinical stage mu-opioid
biased ligand, TRV130, in development for post-operative pain, a
pre-clinical program for chronic pain, and discovery-stage programs
for pain and Parkinson's disease. Trevena is based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and is backed by
Alta Partners, Healthcare Ventures, NEA, Polaris, Forest Holdings
and Yasuda Enterprise Development Company. For more
information about the company, please visit
www.trevenainc.com.
For more information, please contact:
Ros Deegan, VP Business Development, Trevena Inc., 610-354-8840
x225 (Corporate)
Kimberly Minarovich, Christensen,
917-533-3268 (Media)
SOURCE Trevena, Inc.