Partikula Appoints Leading Cancer Metabolism Experts To Advisory Board; Extends Its Work On Its Multiple Checkpoint Inhibitors; Adds Seasoned Technical Development Professional To The Management Team

SUNRISE, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Partikula LLC, a late stage preclinical biotechnology company, today announced the addition of Dr. Matthew Vander Heiden and Dr. Joshua Rabinowitz to the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. “Matt and Josh bring to our team world-class expertise in the areas of cancer and cell metabolism that is second to none. Their scientific and clinical knowledge will compliment the therapeutic development work our scientists have been doing utilizing our mitochondria-targeting chemistries to modulate cancer metabolism and destroy tumors. We are very excited to have them on board and look forward to working together to bring novel and important medicines to patients,” said David Kolb, CEO of Partikula.

“The early results generated by the Partikula team are exciting. Their mitochondria-targeting chemistries seem to have afforded them the opportunity to access some interesting targets which I believe could have significant impact in the development of novel cancer therapies.”

Dr. Vander Heiden added, “The early results generated by the Partikula team are exciting. Their mitochondria-targeting chemistries seem to have afforded them the opportunity to access some interesting targets which I believe could have significant impact in the development of novel cancer therapies.”

Dr. Vander Heiden is an Associate Professor at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Department of Biology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as an Instructor of Medicine, Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Vander Heiden is also an Institute Member of Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Vander Heiden is a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Aeglea Biotherapeutics and Agios Pharmaceuticals and is recognized as one of the leading experts in the field of cancer metabolism.

Dr. Rabinowitz is a Professor of Chemistry and Integrative Genomics at Princeton University. Dr. Rabinowitz Co-founded Raze Therapeutics and Alexza Pharmaceuticals, where he invented the Adasuve Inhaler for treatment of acute agitation, a FDA-approved inhalation drug product. Dr. Rabinowitz is known for his expertise in applying metabolomic technology to identify drug targets and probe mechanisms of drug action. He serves as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board of Raze Therapeutics and Kadmon Corporation.

“The ability for this technology to interrogate mitochondrial metabolic targets is quite interesting and holds the potential for future application in immune, metabolic, and CNS disorders, in addition to the current application to cancer,” said Dr. Rabinowitz.

Partikula also welcomes J. Michael Ramstack, PhD, to the team as Vice President of Technical Operations. Dr. Ramstack was previously with Blend Therapeutics, Cerulean Pharma, Alkermes, DuPont and Johnson & Johnson where he had increasing responsibilities in the areas of process development, drug substance scale up, and various other chemistry-related manufacturing tasks. Dr. Ramstack has had a significant impact on moving complicated therapeutic formulations from research bench to clinical trials to approved products including Risperdal Consta^®, Vivitrol^® and Bydureon^®. “We are thrilled to be working with Mike. He has proven himself time and again as a person who can take complex technologies and shepherd them into clinical trials and beyond. Given the potential opportunity we have with our mitochondria-targeted chemistry platforms we thought it would be important to bring in one of the best folks we could find,” added David Kolb.

About Partikula

Partikula is a preclinical stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel therapies for cancer and other diseases based on platform chemistry technologies for targeting mitochondria. Current focus is on the development of its metabolic inhibitors, which have been found to modulate the tumor microenvironment lowering multiple checkpoint proteins while increasing immune cell infiltration.