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Merix Bioscience Announces New Leadership and Board Members
Durham, NC– August 10, 2004 – Merix Bioscience, a company
pioneering therapeutic immunotherapy vaccines, announced today that Lothar
Finke, M.D., and Doug Winship, vice president of clinical development
and vice president of quality and regulatory affairs, respectively, have
joined the company. In addition, Merix welcomes Michel Gréco and
Richard Meadows to their board of directors.
“Coming on the heels of two very lucrative and strategic industry
partnerships, we’re now expanding our business leadership so we
can more aggressively pursue development of cutting-edge personalized
immunotherapies,” said
Clint Dederick, chairman and CEO of Merix. “We look forward to
these individuals helping us to achieve significant future clinical and
regulatory objectives as we move forward in numerous anti-cancer and
anti-viral applications on a world wide basis.”
Dr. Finke joins Merix from EMD Pharmaceuticals, and has also worked with
Merck KGaA, the Max-Delbrueck-Center for Molecular Medicine and the Basel
Institute for Immunology, and Ruprecht-Carls University of Heidelberg.
He has a medical degree and doctorate from Philipps-University of Marburg
in Lahn, Germany. Dr. Finke’s thorough expertise involves nine
years of biotech oncology development practice, six years of clinical
experience in surgical oncology, and 10 years of molecular and cell-biology
research.
Mr. Winship has held a number of positions, including executive officer,
with corporations such as CEL-SCI Corp., Curative Technologies Revlon
Health Care Group. He has been involved I over 35 INDs, and 12 NDAs/PLAs
in his career. Mr. Winship has established Regulatory Affairs and Quality
Assurance departments at a VC-backed company and has successfully managed
the development of SOP and documentation systems, which have withstood
the scrutiny of numerous FDA inspections. He earned a B.S. in Chemistry
from Upsala College in New Jersey.
The new members to Merix’s board of directors also bring vast experience
in healthcare and biomedical industry.
In addition to Merix, Michel Gréco is a board member of several
public and private companies and international institutions, and advisor
to the World Health Organization for vaccine research. He has worked
in the pharmaceutical division of the French group Rhône Poulenc
and at Institut Mérieux, a leading vaccine company based in Lyon,
France, whose name later changed to
Pasteur Merieux Connaught (“PMC”), then Aventis Pasteur following
the acquisition of Pasteur Vaccins (France) and Connaught Laboratories
(“US and Canada”). He was CEO of a European joint venture
between PMC and Merck, then President and COO of Aventis Pasteur until
2003. Among numerous vaccine-related articles, Gréco recently
wrote a chapter of “New Generation Vaccines,” 3rd edition.
Richard Meadows is a partner with CDP Capital Technology Ventures, contributing
his industry knowledge as the company makes new investments in promising
biomedical companies. Prior to CDP, he served as president and CEO of
the first Canadian start-up in wound care. He has also facilitated and
developed strategies for a spin off of the National Research Council,
Institute of Biomedical Engineering of the University of Toronto as well
as a new Canadian R&D facility for Cheril Jedang Pharma of Seoul,
Korea. Mr. Meadows spent almost 20 years in various senior positions
in the pharmaceutical industry working for the likes of ASTRA, BRISTOL
MYERS, and BURROUGHS WELLCOME.
Merix Bioscience, Inc. – a privately held company headquartered
in Durham, North Carolina, and with additional operations in Erlangen,
Germany and Amsterdam, the Netherlands – is dedicated to becoming
a market leader in the field of immunotherapy. Utilizing proprietary
technology and proven therapeutic methods and expertise in dendritic
cell biology, Merix is developing the next generation of therapies in
the areas of oncology, infectious diseases, autoimmune disorders and
transplantation. Merix’s initial total tumor RNA-loaded dendritic
cell vaccine is currently in a corporate Phase I/II clinical trial for
patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma. For more information,
please visit www.Merixbio.com.
# # #
Editor Contact:
Merix Bioscience, Inc.
Bradd Pavur (Gibbs & Soell, Inc.)
Tel: 919-870-5718
bpavur@gibbs-soell.com
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