SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AnaptysBio, Inc., a privately-held therapeutic antibody company, today announced that Carol G. Gallagher has joined its board of directors as Executive Chair. In addition, AnaptysBio has promoted Hamza Suria to chief business officer and acting chief executive officer, and David J. King to chief scientific officer.
As an industry veteran, Gallagher brings extensive leadership experience to the advancement of AnaptysBio’s SHM-XEL platform and therapeutic pipeline. She joins AnaptysBio after serving as CEO of Calistoga Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Gilead Sciences earlier this year. Prior to Calistoga, she served as president and CEO of Metastatix, senior vice president of corporate development at Anadys Pharmaceuticals and vice president of product planning at CancerVax. Beginning in 2002, Gallagher led the Rituxan collaboration and oncology marketing at Biogen Idec. She also led oncology and ophthalmology global marketing planning at Pfizer, joining Pfizer through the acquisition of Warner Lambert and Agouron Pharmaceuticals.
Suria, who joined AnaptysBio in December 2008, will continue to lead AnaptysBio’s corporate development efforts as chief business officer in addition to functioning as acting CEO. Prior to AnaptysBio, Suria was at Maxygen, where he was responsible for partnering and alliance management of next-generation protein therapeutics with Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Bayer, Astellas and others. Before Maxygen, he was responsible for business development at Diabetogen Biosciences and Viron Therapeutics. Suria holds a B.Sc. in biochemistry from Kalamazoo College, an M.S. in immunology from the University of Western Ontario and an Executive MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business.
King, who joined AnaptysBio in November 2008, will continue to lead all research and development efforts at AnaptysBio as chief scientific officer. Prior to AnaptysBio, King was at Medarex, where he was involved in the design and selection of therapeutic antibodies, and led the development of a new class of antibody-drug conjugates. He is an established expert in antibody engineering and antibody therapeutics and has been involved in the design and development of three FDA-approved antibody products and several other clinical stage antibodies. At Celltech in the United Kingdom, where he worked for 14 years, he was the lead inventor of Cimzia®, a PEGylated antibody fragment for therapy of autoimmune diseases and was involved in the design and development of Mylotarg®, an antibody-drug conjugate for therapy of acute myeloid leukemia. Prior to joining Medarex, King was at Coulter Pharmaceuticals, later acquired by Corixa, where he was part of the team which successfully refiled the BLA for Bexxar®, a radiolabelled antibody for therapy of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. King received his B.S. from the University of Warwick and his Ph.D. from the University of Surrey in the U.K., and was a Glaxo Group Research postdoctoral fellow.
About AnaptysBio
Founded in 2005, AnaptysBio, Inc. is a privately-held company focused on the generation of antibody therapeutics, and the leader in the use of somatic hypermutation (SHM) for antibody discovery and optimization. SHM is the body’s natural process for generating potent antibodies. The Company’s SHM-XEL™ platform couples SHM with mammalian cell display to generate antibodies for therapeutic applications through an iterative process of natural evolution and high-throughput selection under controlled conditions – a process that has been referred to as “naturalizing” antibodies. This versatile platform can be used for both discovery of new antibodies and optimization of existing antibodies to generate candidates with desired properties for therapeutic applications. AnaptysBio has established broad intellectual property around the use of SHM, and is currently building a pipeline of novel therapeutic antibody product candidates. Major investors in AnaptysBio include founding investor Avalon Ventures, as well as Alloy Ventures, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, and Novo A/S. For more information, visit www.anaptysbio.com.