Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals Regulatory News (HEMO)

Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals Plc

("Hemogenyx" or the "Company")

Advisory Board Appointment

Hemogenyx appoints renowned cancer drug researcher to Advisory Board

Michael Shepard brings experience in drug development, pharma collaborations

Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals Plc. (LSE: HEMO), the biotechnology company developing novel therapies to transform bone marrow, or blood stem cell, transplantation for the treatment of blood diseases, announces that H. Michael Shepard, Ph.D. has been appointed to the Company's Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Shepard is a pioneer in modern cancer research. His work has led to the discovery and development of many successful cancer treatments including Herceptin/trastuzumab, an antibody used to treat breast cancer patients. Sales of Herceptin and its biosimilars currently exceed $6.5 billion worldwide.

In 2006, Dr. Shepard received Harvard Medical School's prestigious Warren Alpert Prize in recognition of contributions to the field of cancer treatment research.

In his Advisory Board role, Dr. Shepard will draw on his many years of experience advancing antibody-based therapeutics from the development phase, through clinical studies and FDA approval, to commercial launch. He will use his expertise to advise Hemogenyx on the pre-clinical and clinical development of its lead candidate CDX antibodies. These highly specific CDX antibodies selectively eliminate hematopoietic stem cells and progenitors and a subset of acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), and promise to offer safer alternatives to chemotherapy and radiation as means of eliminating refractory/relapsed AML and patient conditioning before bone marrow transplants.

Commenting Dr. Shepard, said: "Hemogenyx is developing cancer therapies that have the potential to save lives, and I'm proud to be a part of that. As a member of Hemogenyx's Scientific Advisory Board, I'll be able to use the experience I've accrued working with other pre-clinical biotechnology programmes to help guide Hemogenyx toward the release of successful antibody-based therapies." 

Dr. Vladislav Sandler, CEO of Hemogenyx, said: "Hemogenyx has always sought out experienced experts with extensive biotech and large pharma drug development experience - and Michael Shepard has all of those qualities. I'm confident that our well-established and enviable Advisory Board will benefit from Dr. Shepard's vast experience as we develop life-saving therapies that will transform bone marrow and blood stem cell transplant treatments."

In addition to his work at Genentech, Dr. Shepard built successful programmes at various biotechnology companies. He helped launch Canji, Inc., the first company to successfully traverse the gene therapy regulatory framework to initiate a clinical trial with adenovirus-p53, a disabled adenovirus encoding the p53 tumor suppressor gene, for drug-resistant ovarian cancer. Shepard helped to engineer Canji's relationship with Schering-Plough, which acquired Canji. Likewise, Shepard was the founder, president and CSO of Receptor BioLogix, which focused on developing protein therapies to treat cancer, autoimmune, metabolic and other diseases, and was acquired by Symphogen. NewBiotics, Inc., which Shepard also founded, invented a new class of therapeutics, called Enzyme Catalyzed Therapeutic Agents. That company was acquired by Kiadis Pharma.

Dr. Shepard received his bachelor's degree in zoology from UC Davis and his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology from Indiana University, where he was a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Fellow.

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About Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals Plc

Hemogenyx Pharmaceuticals Plc is a publicly traded company (LSE: HEMO) headquartered in London, with its wholly owned U.S. operating subsidiary, HemoGenyx LLC, located in its state-of-the-art research facility in Brooklyn, New York.

HemoGenyx is a preclinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel therapies and treatments for blood diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma. The company's leading technologies aim to change the way in which bone marrow/hematopoietic stem cell (BM/HSC) transplants are performed and improve their efficacy. HemoGenyx's two distinct and complementary products include an immunotherapy product for patient conditioning-the CDX bi-specific antibody-and a cell therapy product for BM/HSC transplantation-the HuPHEC. Each of these products holds the potential to revolutionize the way BM/HSC transplants are being performed, offering solutions that mitigate the dangers and limitations associated with the current standard of care.

For more information, visit www.hemogenyx.com.