Date: 2015-05-19
Type of information: Nomination
Compound:
Company: Acucela (USA - MA)
Therapeutic area: Ophtalmological diseases
Type agreement: nomination
Action mechanism:
Disease:
Details: * On May 19, 2015, Acucela, a clinical-stage biotechnology company that specializes in discovering and developing novel drug candidates to potentially treat and slow the progression of sight-threatening ophthalmic diseases, has announced that it has nominated Shintaro Asako to stand for election to the Company’s Board of Directors at the 2015 Annual Meeting of Shareholders on June 25, 2015 (the “Annual Meeting”) at Acucela’s headquarters in Seattle. Mr. Asako, age 40, is the Chief Executive Officer of DeNA West, the U.S. affiliate of Tokyo-based DeNA, a global leader in mobile Internet services. Before becoming CEO in 2013, Mr. Asako was the Chief Financial Officer of DeNA West and, before that, served as CFO of MediciNova, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company traded on the NASDAQ Global Market and the JASDAQ Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. From 1998 to 2005, Mr. Asako held various positions at KPMG LLP and Arthur Anderson LLP, providing a variety of audit, tax, and business consulting services to multinational clients. Mr. Asako is a graduate of the Leventhal School of Accounting at the University of Southern California. Mr. Asako is intended to replace Yoshitaka Kitao, the Chief Executive Officer of SBI Holdings, Inc., a Japanese financial services group and large shareholder in Acucela, who has decided not to stand for re-election at the Annual Meeting and will retire from the Board effective June 25, 2015. Mr. Kitao was elected to the Board on May 1 as one of four new members to the 5-member Board, which that same day appointed Dr. Kubota, Acucela’s founder and former Chief Executive Officer, as Company President and Chief Executive Officer. The Board also appointed a new Acucela executive management team with a combined eight decades of experience in executive leadership, health care management, life science administration and technology.
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