CALGARY, Sept. 8, 2014 /CNW/ - Zenith Epigenetics Corp. ("Zenith" or the "Company") today announced that it has appointed Joy Zhu, MD, PhD, as Chief Medical Officer, Sanjay Lakhotia, PhD, as Chief Business Officer, and Michael Yakes, PhD, as Vice President Drug Discovery and Exploratory Development.
Dr. Zhu joins Zenith at a pivotal time, just ahead of the first-in-human oncology clinical trials investigating Zenith's proprietary BET inhibitor, ZEN-3365. Dr. Zhu has over 20 years of oncology clinical development experience and has led the design and execution of multiple clinical trials including those resulting in the approval of successful products such as SUTENTÒ and XGEVA. Prior to joining Zenith, Dr. Zhu held leadership positions at SUGEN/Pfizer, S*BIO Pte Ltd, Amgen, JNJ, and Novartis. Most recently, Dr. Zhu led oncology clinical development at Halozyme Therapeutics.
Dr. Lakhotia brings significant business, operational, and product development expertise to Zenith, with more than two decades of experience at innovative pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, MedImmune, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Portola Pharmaceuticals, and Pathway Therapeutics. He has contributed to the business development and product development efforts for significant products such as Prevnar, Nexavar, and FluMist.
Dr. Yakes has over 15 years of experience in the discovery and development of novel cancer therapeutics. Prior to joining Zenith, Dr. Yakes held the position of Senior Director, Translational Biology at Cleave Biosciences. Prior to Cleave Biosciences, he held positions of increasing responsibility at Exelixis, making major contributions to the preclinical characterization and IND/NDA filings for COMETRIQ (cabozantanib).
Dr. Julie Cherrington, President and CEO of Zenith, remarked, "I am very excited to welcome Joy, Sanjay and Mike to Zenith's management team. We have a great foundation to develop a best in class BET inhibitor for the treatment of hematological malignancies and solid tumors in select patient populations. This is a pivotal step in building a leading epigenetics company".
About Zenith
Zenith Epigenetics Corp. is a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of novel therapeutics by applying its proprietary epigenetics platform. Zenith's bromodomain (BET) inhibitors are being advanced in several oncology indications and have the potential to impact multiple additional diseases as well.
SOURCE Zenith Epigenetics Corp.
