Date: 2015-08-19
Type of information: Nomination
Compound:
Company: SELLAS Life Sciences (Switzerland)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology - CNS diseases
Type agreement: nomination
Action mechanism:
Disease:
Details: * On August 19, 2015, SELLAS Life Sciences Group announced the appointments of Gregory M. Torre, Ph.D., J.D, as Chief Regulatory Officer and Vice President, Operations, and Martin G. Baum, as Senior Vice President, Commercial Strategy. The Company is expanding and strengthening its team as it prepares to launch multiple Phase 3 studies for its lead programs developing WT1 vaccine for cancer indications and a proprietary formulation of Zolpidem for basal ganglia disorders. The company plans to initiate Phase 3 studies based on an extensive array of promising clinical results; including increased survival of patients with acute myeloid leukemia following treatment with the Company’s WT1 cancer vaccine, improvements in motor functioning of a key subset of patients with progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and Parkinson’s disease who were treated with high-dose use of Zolpidem, as well as initiating a Phase I trial next year with its proprietary transporter protein attached with a full-length p21 tumor suppressor protein for activating apoptosis and inhibiting tumor proliferation.” Dr. Gregory M. Torre is a scientist-attorney with 35 years of hands-on international executive leadership experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Prior to joining SELLAS, Dr. Torre served as Vice President, Worldwide Regulatory Strategy – Global Established Products at Pfizer, Inc. Prior to this, he was Vice President of Drug Development at Elusys Therapeutics Inc., and served as Pharmaceutical Science and Legal Consultant at Axiom Law/The Torre Group. Previously, Dr. Torre held senior positions at Alvogen, including Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Quality; Chief Compliance Officer, and Intellectual Property and Regulatory Council. Prior to joining Alvogen, Dr. Torre was the Senior Vice President for Regulatory Affairs, Quality and Technical Operations at NPS Pharmaceuticals, and he also held positions at MannKind. Prior to this, at Biovest, he was instrumental in developing FDA-acceptable surrogate markers and endpoints for an autologous vaccine to treat non-Hodgkin lymphoma. During his career, Dr. Torre also held leadership positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Sanofi, Sankyo and Novartis. Dr. Torre received his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School, and he is a member of the Bar in the State of New Jersey, the District of Columbia and the United States Supreme Court. He received his B.S. in Pharmacy from St. John’s University, College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions and is a registered Pharmacist in the State of New York. He was also awarded an M.S. in Pharmacology/Toxicology and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology/Toxicology from the same institution. Martin G. Baum brings to SELLAS over 25 years’ experience building and leading global biopharmaceutical companies through continued growth. Most recently, he served as founding partner and Managing Director of Komedica, a healthcare consulting firm. Previously, Mr. Baum founded and served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Vestiq Pharmaceuticals, which was sold to a holding of Praelia Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2013. Prior to this, Mr. Baum was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Turnberry Development and previously was Founder and Chief Executive Officer of TEAMM Pharma, a specialty pain company that he sold to Accentia Biopharma and took public in 2005. Prior to this, he held the position of Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations at DJ Pharmaceuticals, where he helped achieve profitability within two years and sold the Company to Biovail Corporation. He also was a founding member and served as Senior Vice President of Operations and BD at Skye Pharma PLC, an international company focused on generics and novel drug delivery technologies. He began his career with Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals and GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Baum is a founding member of Health Scape Data and sits on the board of Inno BioPharma, an early stage oncology development company spun out of the University of Iowa. Mr. Baum graduated from the University of Toledo, with B.S. degrees in Human Life Sciences and Business Administration.
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