PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- Alexza Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (“Alexza”) announced today the addition of three new Vice Presidents to the Company’s executive management team. William C. Houghton, MD joins the company as Vice President, Clinical and Regulatory Affairs, William L. Leschensky, MD, JD, was promoted to the position of Vice President, Intellectual Property and Robert H. Strickland joins the company as Vice President, Commercial Manufacturing.
Dr. Houghton has joined the company as Vice President, Clinical and Regulatory Affairs. From June 2005 to November 2005, Dr. Houghton served as Vice President of Clinical Development at Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. From May 2002 to June 2005, Dr. Houghton served as Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific and Chief Medical Officer of Orphan Medical, Inc. until it was acquired by Jazz Pharmaceuticals. From August 1998 to May 2002, Dr. Houghton served as Chief Operating Officer of Orphan Medical. From 1995 to 1998, Dr. Houghton was Chief Scientific Officer of Iotek, Inc. From 1984 to 1995, Dr. Houghton held a variety of management positions with Abbott Australia and Abbott Laboratories in the United States. Dr. Houghton received an MD from Sydney University and completed a fellowship at Sydney University in anesthesia.
Dr. Leschensky was promoted to the position of Vice President, Intellectual Property. From December 2004 to October 2005, he was Senior Director, Intellectual Property at Alexza. Prior to joining Alexza, Dr. Leschensky was in-house intellectual property counsel at SurroMed, Inc., and from 1992 to 2000, he was an attorney at Fish and Neave and Morrison & Foerster where his practice focused on patent litigation, prosecution and portfolio analysis. Dr. Leschensky holds an MD from the University of Illinois College of Medicine and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Mr. Strickland has joined the company as Vice President, Commercial Manufacturing. From 1981 to July 2005, Mr. Strickland held various positions at ALZA Corporation, which Johnson & Johnson acquired in June 2001, including Managing Director and Vice President of Operations at ALZA Ireland, Ltd., from 2002 to 2004 and Vice President of Manufacturing from August 2004 to 2005. Mr. Strickland received a BS degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Nevada, Reno.
“During 2005, we have continued to make progress with our business plan and development programs. To keep pace with our growth, we have added three outstanding individuals to our executive management team,” said Thomas B. King, Alexza President and CEO. “I am pleased to welcome Bill Houghton and Robert Strickland to our company, and excited to internally promote Bill Leschensky. We are looking forward to having their expertise, and their individual and collective broad experiences at Alexza as we continue to expand our development programs.”
Alexza is an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel, proprietary products for the treatment of acute and intermittent conditions. The Company currently has one product candidate in Phase II clinical development, two product candidates which have completed Phase I trials, and is preparing an IND that the Company plans to submit in the first half of 2006 as a fourth product candidate. Alexza’s technology, the Staccato(TM) system, vaporizes unformulated drug substance to form a condensation aerosol that allows systemic delivery through deep lung inhalation. The drug is rapidly absorbed through the lungs, providing speed of therapeutic onset that is comparable to intravenous administration with greater ease, patient comfort and convenience.
This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements relating to growth, expanding our development program and timing of regulatory submissions. Actual events could differ materially from those projected and the Company cautions readers not to place undue reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this release.
Alexza Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
CONTACT: Thomas B. King, President & CEO of Alexza, +1-650-687-3900, ortking@alexza.com
Web site: http://www.alexza.com//
