Press Releases
Jennerex Appoints Dr. Hoyoung Huh to Its Board of Directors
San Francisco, California, January 11, 2010 – Jennerex, Inc. (San Francisco, CA and Ottawa, Ontario), a clinical stage cancer biotherapeutics company, today announced the appointment of Hoyoung Huh, M.D., Ph.D. to its board of directors. Dr. Huh is currently chairman of BiPar Sciences, Inc., an independent wholly-owned subsidiary of sanofi-aventis, and chairman of Epizyme, Inc., representing two leading novel cancer therapeutics companies.
Dr. Hoyoung Huh brings unique experiences with multiple biotechnology companies involved in innovative drug development and corporate partnerships. While president and chief executive officer of BiPar Sciences, he led the $500 million merger in April 2009 with sanofi-aventis. He was previously a member of the board of directors, chief operating officer, and head of the PEGylation business unit at Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR). At Nektar, Dr. Huh led significant partnership transactions with multiple pharmaceutical companies, including Bayer, Roche, Baxter, Novartis, and Pfizer. He was formerly a partner at McKinsey and Company, where he was a leader in the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical sectors. Dr. Huh is also the chairman of the board of Epizyme, Inc. and is a member of the board of directors of Facet Biotech (NASDAQ: FACT), BayBio, SciDose LLC, and Interplast. He also serves on the Presidential Advisory Council of the Berklee College of Music. Dr. Huh holds an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, a Ph.D. in Genetics/Cell Biology from the Cornell University/Sloan-Kettering Institute, and a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Dartmouth College.
"Hoyoung brings a tremendous amount of highly relevant industry experience and wisdom to our board. His capabilities and industry relationships will enable him to contribute extensively to our clinical and business development efforts," said David H. Kirn, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Jennerex. "With exciting clinical results from JX-594 in liver cancer, we expect to launch a Phase 3 trial for this product in 2010. As we transform Jennerex into a late stage company, we are pleased to further bolster our leadership team with the addition of Dr. Huh who, along with the rest of our team, will be instrumental in taking Jennerex toward commercialization."
About Jennerex
Jennerex is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of first-in-class, breakthrough targeted oncolytic products for cancer. The company's lead product JX-594, currently in an international Phase 2 trial for primary liver cancer and colorectal cancer, demonstrated promising Phase 1 efficacy and safety results in patients with a diverse array of common cancers. Jennerex's products target, attack and eradicate cancers through a novel and potent oncolytic mechanism that is dependent on highly-specific replication of the company's poxviruses in cancer cells. These products simultaneously stimulate the body's immune response to the cancer. Of note, this mechanism of action and the results in patients to date put the company's product class in a leadership position. Jennerex's therapeutic approach is markedly different from gene therapy and standard cancer vaccine approaches. Jennerex Biotherapeutics was established in San Francisco CA and in Ottawa Canada in 2006 with Dr. David Kirn (CEO) in San Francisco and Dr. John Bell (CSO) from the Ottawa Health Research Institute/University of Ottawa. For more information about Jennerex and the company's robust pipeline and three clinical-stage products, please visit www.jennerex.com.
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