Avidia, Inc. Expands Senior Management Team

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., June 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Avidia Inc.(TM), a privately-held biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing a new class of human therapeutic proteins, today announced the appointment of Paulette A. Dillon as senior vice president and chief business officer and Charles Sholtz, Ph.D., J.D., as vice president of intellectual property and legal affairs.

"Avidia's therapeutic discovery programs have advanced to a stage in which partnerships and licensing are expected to add to the sustained value growth of the company. Paulette has the right background and experience to help us capitalize on the external interest in our programs," said Peter Van Vlasselaer, Ph.D., Avidia's chief executive officer. "Because we generate new ideas and concepts around our Avimer(TM) protein technology on a daily basis, we decided to bring an IP expert on board to capture our scientists' ideas and discoveries in real time. Chuck is the right person for that as he brings a unique combination of industry, scientific and intellectual property expertise to Avidia."

Ms. Dillon joins Avidia from the Celera Genomics Group, where she served as chief business officer. In that position, she was responsible for strategic business and portfolio planning, as well as business development activities, including licensing and the formation of new collaborations. She has 20 years of diverse business experience gained through a variety of management positions at pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Her experience includes strategic planning, portfolio management, early commercial development, corporate/business development, new product planning and U.S./international marketing and sales. Earlier in her career, she served as vice president, market and business development, at Exelixis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., vice president of strategic marketing and business development at Roche for the Inflammatory Diseases Drug Discovery and Development Unit and held various marketing and sales positions at Syntex Labs, Inc. She earned a B.S. in Kinesiology from UCLA.

Dr. Sholtz joins Avidia from Entelos, Inc., where he served as vice president of legal affairs and intellectual property, responsible for all aspects of intellectual property protection. Throughout his career, he has been responsible for a broad range of intellectual property efforts in the life science and biotechnology industry, including preparing and prosecuting patent applications, developing patent and licensing strategies and identifying patentable inventions. Earlier in his career, Dr. Sholtz served as senior director of intellectual property at Xenogen Corporation and senior patent agent at the Affymax Research Institute. He earned a J.D. from Santa Clara University, a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford University, an M.A. in biophysics from Yale University, and a B.S. in cellular and molecular biology and a B.S.E. in bioengineering from the University of Michigan.

About Avidia

Avidia is a privately-held biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing a new class of human therapeutic proteins. Avidia is engineering these Avimer(TM) protein therapeutics against multiple validated and novel targets to address a wide range of disease areas, including inflammation, oncology and neurology. For more information, visit: www.avidia.com.

Avidia, Inc.

CONTACT: E. Blair Schoeb of WeissComm Partners, +1-760-365-1857, orblair@weisscommpartners.com, for Avidia

Back to news