EMERYVILLE, Calif., Aug. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Adamas Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately held company, announced today that it has expanded its management team, naming Michael D. Coffee, Senior Vice President, Sales and Marketing, and Amy K. Patick, PhD, Vice President, Research.
Mr. Coffee will report to Gregory Went, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Adamas and will be responsible for US sales and marketing, identification of ex-US partners and new product initiatives. His initial focus will be on developing international partnerships for Adamas’ infectious disease and CNS programs, and developing the specialty pharmaceutical business unit.
Dr. Patick will report to Efraim Shek, PhD, Senior Vice President, Research and Development, and will be responsible for Adamas’ Research activities aimed at establishing proof-of-concept of Adamas’ infectious disease and neurology drug development programs. In this role, Dr. Patick will also lead the company’s efforts to build its scientific presence and collaborations with anti-infective and CNS community leaders.
“These appointments reflect Adamas’ accelerated trajectory and commitment to engage experienced leaders to help advance our CNS programs and our lead program, Triple Combination Antiviral Drug (TCAD) therapy for seasonal and novel H1N1 influenza,” said Gregory Went, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Adamas. “Mr. Coffee and Dr. Patick are veteran pharmaceutical industry executives whose extensive experience will be instrumental in developing and executing our long-term strategy in neurology and infectious disease.”
Adamas was founded in 2004 to address vexing global health problems such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia, and infectious diseases such as influenza. Adamas invents precisely calibrated fixed-dose therapeutic treatments in controlled release combinations that overcome the limitations of monotherapy and conventional dosage forms. The company has three product candidates in development:
About Mr. Coffee and Dr. Patick
Mr. Coffee brings more than 30 years sales, marketing and senior management experience working with emerging as well as large pharmaceutical companies. Prior to Adamas he served as Chief Business Officer for Avigen, Inc. He co-founded the Alekta Group, LLC to provide a comprehensive range of pharmaceutical development consulting services. Mr. Coffee also held positions as President and Chief Operating Officer of Amarin Corporation plc and Amarin Pharmaceuticals Inc., President and Chief Operating Officer of Elan Pharmaceuticals, North America, and President and Chief Operating Officer of Athena Neurosciences, Inc. Mr. Coffee was Vice President of Marketing & Sales for Miles Pharmaceuticals, the U.S. division of Bayer AG, and Vice President of Sales for USV Laboratories. He began his career with Sandoz Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Coffee received a BS in Biology from Siena College.
Dr. Amy Patick joins Adamas with more than 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience. Amy started her professional career as Research Investigator with Bristol-Myers Squibb and then joined Agouron Pharmaceuticals (later on Pfizer Global R&D), where she worked from 1994 - 2007 in various leadership positions leading up to her role as Head of Biology, Antiviral Therapeutic Area. In this capacity, Dr. Patick led the preclinical effort in the successful approval of Viracept (nelfinavir) for HIV infection. Most recently, Dr. Patick was Vice President, Biological Sciences at Genelabs Technologies. Dr. Patick earned her PhD in Medical Microbiology from the University of Wisconsin, and had postdoctoral training at the Mayo Clinic/Foundation in Rochester, MN. She is the co-author of more than 70 scientific publications and holds over 20 patents. She is the current President of the International Society for Antiviral Research.
About TCAD Therapy
Adamas is pioneering triple-combination antiviral drug (TCAD) therapy for influenza, which is designed to inhibit viral replication at multiple points in the virus proliferation pathway. TCAD therapy includes Adamas’ investigational proprietary fixed-dose combination of amantadine and ribavirin, to be administered adjunctively with a neuraminidase inhibitor such as Tamiflu (oseltamivir phosphate, Roche). Preclinical data indicate that the in vitro combination of these drugs, each with their own mechanism of action, act synergistically to provide a much higher level of antiviral activity than single or double drug combination therapies. In in vitro studies to date, TCAD therapy also has been found to provide greater antiviral activity across multiple strains of influenza, even those resistant to single pharmaceutical agents. Adamas is accelerating development of its TCAD therapy for influenza A by conducting a Phase 2 clinical trial in the Southern Hemisphere where the novel influenza A/H1N1 pandemic is active, and is preparing to initiate a clinical study of TCAD therapy for influenza A in North America during this upcoming flu season.
About Adamas
Adamas is an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on developing small molecule, Advantaged Therapeutics to treat neurological and infectious diseases, including influenza A, the cause of the current flu pandemic. Adamas’ approach to pharmaceutical development is to identify and match proven drug mechanisms that can be developed as optimized combination drug therapies to increase safety, efficacy and compliance, thus improving upon the standard of care. Adamas is headquartered in Emeryville, California, with operations in Bangalore, India. For more information about Adamas, please visit www.adamaspharma.com.
SOURCE Adamas Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
CONTACT: Kimberly Kraemer, Corporate Communications, +1-510-450-3572,
kkraemer@adamaspharma.com, or Aimee Corso, media, +1-310-780-2661,
acorso@wcpglobal.com, both of WeissComm Partners
Web site: http://www.adamaspharma.com/
