www.bethelfinance.com
Bethel Finance news:
Medgenics, Inc. (the "Company"), the developer of a novel technology for the sustained production and delivery of therapeutic proteins in patients using their own tissue, today announced the addition of Nezam H. Afdhal, M.D., Chief of Hepatology, Director of Liver Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard School of Medicine; and Steven Fishbane, M.D., a distinguished nephrologist and widely published author in the field of renal anemia, to the Company's Strategic Advisory Board ("SAB").
"It is a privilege and pleasure to have both Dr. Afdhal and Dr. Fishbane join our SAB as each is a distinguished clinician in his respective field," stated Andrew L. Pearlman, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Medgenics. "Medgenics is certain to benefit from such accomplished and notable additions to our SAB as their expert advice and years of experience should contribute greatly to the acceleration of our clinical efforts in the two medical specialties we have chosen as the lead indications for our Biopump(TM) protein therapy technology."
"Dr. Afdhal's and Dr. Fishbane's input will be particularly valuable as we advance our clinical development programs for INFRADURE, our product candidate for the sustained production and delivery of interferon-alpha to treat hepatitis, and EPODURE, our most advanced product candidate for the sustained production and delivery of erythropoietin ("EPO") to treat anemia," added Dr. Pearlman.
Dr. Afdhal's clinical expertise focuses on the management of the complications of liver disease, including cirrhosis and portal hypertension. He is the director of a clinical trials group focusing on novel treatments of hepatitis B and C. Additional research interests include basic and translational research in gallstone disease, liver cancer, and liver fibrosis.
Dr. Afdhal is on the advisory board of the American Liver Foundation and the Massachusetts State Advisory Board for HCV. He has served on the editorial board and as a reviewer for multiple journals. He has published more than 180 papers in journals such as Gastroenterology, Hepatology, Gut, and Journal of Hepatology, as well as 30 book chapters and two books. He has spoken nationally and internationally on chronic liver disease and received many awards, including the American Liver Foundation Award for Excellence and the Mitchell Lectureship of the Royal College of Physicians. He is a member of the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and the European Association for the Study of the Liver.
Dr. Afdhal received his MD degree from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and did fellowship training at University College Dublin and at Boston University School of Medicine.
Discussing his appointment to the Medgenics SAB, Dr. Afdhal said, "I am delighted to join the Medgenics SAB. INFRADURE holds significant promise as a long-acting protein production technology that could replace months of serial injections of interferon-alpha for the treatment of various forms of hepatitis. The severe adverse side effects of interferon injections pose a significant barrier to patient compliance and limit our ability to successfully treat and eradicate this life-threatening and infectious disease that affects millions of patients worldwide. INFRADURE could potentially provide the benefits of interferon therapy without problems of patient compliance and without the severe side effects. I look forward to working with the Medgenics team on INFRADURE and other Biopump products."
Dr. Fishbane is a member of the National Kidney Foundation's Kidney Disease Outcomes Quality Initiative (NKF-KDOQI), and the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes (KDIGO) program, both of which develop guidelines for the treatment of anemia associated with chronic kidney disease. He serves on the Medical Advisory Board of the National Kidney Foundation Serving Greater New York. Renowned for his studies on end-stage renal disease and renal anemia, Dr. Fishbane is on the Editorial Board for the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology and Advances in Renal Replacement and is a reviewer for several journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine.
Dr. Fishbane received MD from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, completed his Internship at Beth Israel Hospital, his Residency in Internal Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, and his Fellowship in Nephrology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, all in New York City.
Dr. Fishbane commented on joining Medgenics SAB, "Recent data presented at the American Society of Nephrology demonstrating that a single EPODURE administration can raise and maintain hemoglobin levels for up to 30 months or more without injections of erythropoietic stimulating agents ("ESA"), is potentially groundbreaking. The fact that the EPODURE treatment also maintained EPO serum levels within normal physiological range, versus the 10-100 fold excessive EPO levels which typically accompany each injection of ESA, indicates the potentially greater safety inherently offered by this steady approach to anemia treatment. I look forward to working with the Medgenics team to advance this promising technology to market as it could represent a paradigm shift in the way we treat anemic patients."
About Medgenics
Medgenics is developing and commercializing Biopump(TM), a proprietary tissue-based platform technology for the sustained production and delivery of therapeutic proteins using the patient's own skin biopsy for the treatment of a range of chronic diseases including anemia, hepatitis C and hemophilia. Medgenics believes this approach has multiple benefits compared with current treatments, which include regular and costly injections of therapeutic proteins.
Medgenics has three long-acting protein therapy products in development based on this technology:
No comments:
Post a Comment