SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MyoKardia, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering a precision medicine approach for the treatment of heritable cardiovascular diseases, today announced the appointment of Eric J. Topol, M.D., to its board of directors and chair of the Company’s science and technology committee. Dr. Topol brings to MyoKardia more than 30 years of expertise in cardiovascular medicine and genetics. As a researcher, he has published approximately 1,100 peer-reviewed articles, with more than 160,000 citations, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine.
“Dr. Topol is a thought leader and distinguished researcher, clinician and author in the fields of cardiovascular medicine, genetics and digital health and their convergence to transform patient care. We look forward to his contributions to MyoKardia and his visionary leadership as we aim to transform the treatment paradigm for heritable cardiovascular diseases,” said Tassos Gianakakos, chief executive officer of MyoKardia.
Since 2006, Dr. Topol has served as a professor of genomics at the Scripps Research Institute, the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, a senior consultant in the division of cardiovascular diseases at Scripps Clinic and the chief academic officer for Scripps Health, where in 2009 he was named the Gary and Mary West Chair of Innovative Medicine. Dr. Topol has also served as editor-in-chief of Medscape, a medical education company, since 2013. From 1991 to 2006, he was at Cleveland Clinic, where he served as chairman of the department of cardiovascular medicine, as well as chief academic officer from 2000 to 2005. Earlier in his career, Dr. Topol was the founder and provost of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. From 1985 to 1991, Dr. Topol was a professor with tenure in the department of internal medicine at the University of Michigan. Dr. Topol holds a B.A., with highest distinction, in biomedicine from the University of Virginia and an M.D., with honor, from the University of Rochester. Dr. Topol completed residency training in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and fellowship training in cardiology at Johns Hopkins University. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 2004.
“There is not nearly enough effort in cardiovascular genomics to preserve health,” said Dr. Topol. “I am excited to have the opportunity to work with MyoKardia to change that.”
About MyoKardia
MyoKardia is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering a precision medicine approach to discover, develop and commercialize targeted therapies for the treatment of serious and neglected rare cardiovascular diseases. MyoKardia’s initial focus is on the treatment of heritable cardiomyopathies, a group of rare, genetically-driven forms of heart failure that result from biomechanical defects in cardiac muscle contraction. MyoKardia has used its precision medicine platform to generate a pipeline of therapeutic programs for the chronic treatment of the two most prevalent forms of heritable cardiomyopathy—hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or HCM, and dilated cardiomyopathy, or DCM. MyoKardia’s most advanced product candidate, MYK-461, is an orally-administered small molecule designed to reduce excessive cardiac muscle contractility leading to HCM and is currently being evaluated in three Phase 1 clinical trials. A cornerstone of the MyoKardia platform is the Sarcomeric Human Cardiomyopathy Registry, or SHaRe, a multi-center, international repository of clinical and laboratory data on individuals and families with genetic heart disease, which MyoKardia helped form in 2014. MyoKardia believes that SHaRe, currently consisting of data from approximately 10,000 individuals, is the world’s largest registry of patients with heritable cardiomyopathies. MyoKardia’s purpose is to improve the lives of patients and families suffering from cardiovascular disease by creating targeted therapies that can change the course of their condition. For more information, please visit www.myokardia.com.
