Health Industry and Scientific Veterans to Support Company’s Mission to Further Discovery and Development of Precision Medicines for Immune-Mediated Inflammatory Diseases
SAN RAFAEL, Calif. & BARCELONA, Spain–(BUSINESS WIRE)–IMIDomics Inc., a global biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of new medicines for the treatment of patients with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs), announced today the formation and members of its Scientific Advisory Board and Business Advisory Board. The groups will work closely with IMIDomics as the company leverages its Precision Discovery Engine to identify new therapies for IMIDs, a group of seemingly unrelated conditions that share common inflammatory pathways including lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.
“IMIDs are enormously complex diseases that are chronically undertreated and difficult to diagnose,” said Juan Harrison, president and CEO of IMIDomics. “Patients with IMIDs deserve medicines that offer better health outcomes and an improved quality of life. We are proud to welcome this diverse group of scientific, medical and business experts whose collective experience and insights will help fuel our precision discovery efforts and potentially uncover new approaches to treat IMIDs that could fundamentally change the way medicines are discovered for these complex diseases.”
With IMIDomics co-founder Dr. Richard M. Myers, who is also president, science director and a faculty investigator of the HudsonAlpha Institute, serving as chair of the Scientific Advisory Board, its members include:
- Dan Littman, MD, PhD is the Helen L. and Martin S. Kimmel professor of Molecular Immunology at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine of NYU Langone Medical Center and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical lnstitute. Previously, he served as professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of California San Francisco. Dr. Littman is a scientific founder and a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Vedanta Biosciences and Immunai and is a member of the Pfizer Board of Directors. He serves on a number of other advisory boards, including for ChemoCentryx, Inc., Vor Biopharma, the Broad Institute, the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard, and the Whitehead Institute.
- Eric Perakslis, PhD is the chief science and digital officer at the Duke Clinical Research Institute and professor of Population Health Sciences at the Duke University School of Medicine who brings deep expertise in the use of data to better understand complex diseases. He previously served as chief information officer and chief scientist (Informatics) at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as senior vice president and head of the Takeda R&D Data Science Institute, and as senior vice president of R&D Information Technology at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals R&D.
- Luisa Salter-Cid, PhD is the chief scientific officer (CSO) at Pioneering Medicines where she is responsible for spearheading a portfolio of groundbreaking treatments. She was previously the CSO at Gossamer Bio and spent more than a decade at Bristol Myers Squibb. At Bristol Myers Squibb, she served as vice president and head of Immunology, Small Molecule Immuno-Oncology, and Genomics Discovery overseeing the development of therapeutics for autoimmune diseases and cancer.
- Séverine Vermeire, MD, PhD is a staff member at the Gastroenterology Department of the University Hospitals Leuven as well as professor of medicine and Research Director for the Biomedical Sciences Group at the Catholic University of Leuven. She has been actively involved in the development of therapeutics for inflammatory bowel disease and has authored more than 500 peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Vermeire previously served as president of the European Crohn’s and Colitis Organization and of the Belgian IBD Research and Development Group.
Sandy Zweifach, former Executive Chair of IMIDomics, now chairs the IMIDomics Business Advisory Board, which includes:
- Dan Bradbury is a Life Sciences Executive with over 35 years of experience creating and implementing strategies that transform businesses, bring novel medicines to market and maximize shareholder value. He is the managing member of BioBrit LLC, a life sciences consulting and investment firm, as well as executive chairman and co-founder of Equillium, (NASDAQ: EQ), a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company focused on developing products to treat severe autoimmune and inflammatory disorders. Previously, he served as President, CEO and Director of Amylin Pharmaceuticals until their acquisition by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company. He also continues to serve on the boards of a number of leading healthcare companies.
- Jessica Owens is a founding partner at Initiate Ventures and Studios. She previously served as co-founder and executive at GRAIL, where she led product strategy, marketing, and commercial. Prior to that, she was the founder and CEO of Spark Diagnostics, a digital health platform for the management of chronic neurological disorders. Additionally, she has been a partner at Kleiner Perkins and managed business strategy for Genomic Health.
- Jim Weiss is a healthcare, biopharma, and medical tech visionary who has been recognized as one of the health care industry’s most influential people. He is the founder and chairman of Real Chemistry, a global health innovation company that uses real-world data, proprietary technologies and analytical insights to solve the healthcare industry’s most significant engagement and commercialization challenges. He also serves as an executive advisor of New Mountain Capital, Real Chemistry’s investment partner. Mr. Weiss is a Board member of Indapta Therapeutics, as well as a Board member and contributor to the LAGRANT Foundation, the Cancer Research Institute, the Commons Project, and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association.
- Sandy Zweifach is a senior executive with 30 years in the life sciences industry. Most recently he was Chair of Palladio Biosciences and Janpix, which were merged into Centessa Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: CNTA), created by Medicxi through the merger of 10 private biotech companies. Mr. Zweifach is currently the Chair of Carisma Therapeutics, the Executive Chair of Kaerus Biosciences, a Non-Executive Board Member of Compugen, Board Member of Essa Pharma, and advisor to several life science companies across several therapeutic areas. He has shepherded the growth of several significant life sciences companies, including serving as co-founder and CEO of Nuvelution Pharma, Inc, and as co-founder and CEO of Ascendancy Healthcare, Inc. He also was Managing Director and CFO of Bay City Capital.
ABOUT THE PRECISION DISCOVERY ENGINE
The IMIDomics Precision Discovery Engine is a proprietary, data-powered system that integrates 15 years of clinical, epidemiologic and biomolecular data, along with patient samples, to identify new therapies for immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) including lupus, Crohn’s disease, rheumatoid arthritis and ulcerative colitis and others. The Precision Discovery Engine leverages state-of-the-art analytics, machine learning and bioinformatics expertise to analyze the data from the Vall d’Hebron IMID-Biobank and uncover new insights about IMIDs based on precisely defined patient populations. IMIDomics maintains an exclusive commercial license to leverage the Vall d’Hebron IMID-Biobank, a leading resource on IMIDs, for treatment discovery and development.
ABOUT IMIDOMICS, INC.
IMIDomics, Inc. is a privately held global biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of new medicines for the treatment of immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs). Headquartered in San Rafael, California, IMIDomics was founded in Barcelona, Spain in 2015 by Dr. Sara Marsal, Head of the Rheumatology Department at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital, and Dr. Richard M. Myers, President and Scientific Director at the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology. To learn more about IMIDomics, please visit www.imidomics.com.
Contacts
IMIDomics Press Contact:
Sylvia Aranda at Real Chemistry
saranda@realchemistry.com