CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Cedilla Therapeutics, a venture-backed preclinical biotechnology company developing novel small molecules for cancer and other diseases, today announced the appointment of Chris Bowden, M.D., to its Board of Directors.

“Chris brings tremendous industry experience to Cedilla, with more than two decades of oncology drug development leadership, having successfully brought multiple novel medicines to market,” said Alexandra Glucksmann, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Cedilla Therapeutics. “His insights will be particularly valuable as we prepare to nominate our first two precision therapeutic oncology drug candidates. We look forward to his many contributions as we advance our lead programs and work to build a broad portfolio of small molecule medicines that can redirect the course of disease and deliver profound benefit to patients.”

Dr. Bowden joined Agios as Chief Medical Officer in May 2014, leading clinical development activities that resulted in the TIBSOVO^® approvals for IDH1 mutation positive acute myeloid leukemia in the U.S. Prior to joining Agios, Dr. Bowden was vice president product development oncology, franchise lead (Signaling Group) at Genentech, Inc., a member of the Roche Group. During Dr. Bowden’s eight years at Genentech, he was responsible for the successful development of a number of novel targeted oncology medicines, including Zelboraf™ for patients with BRAF V600E positive melanoma and Tarceva™ for patients with EGFr activating mutation positive, non-small cell lung cancer. From 2003 to 2006, Dr. Bowden was the executive director for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) regions for Bristol-Myers Squibb. In this role, he led medical affairs strategies for cancer, immunology and pain medicines. Earlier, Dr. Bowden held positions of increasing responsibility in oncology clinical development at Pharmacia Corporation and Janssen Pharmaceutical, Inc. Prior to his industry experience, Dr. Bowden was on the oncology faculty at the University of Virginia Health Science Center where he participated in numerous industry and cooperative group trials. Dr. Bowden received his medical degree from Hahnemann University School of Medicine in Philadelphia followed by internal medicine training at Roger Williams Medical Center and the Providence VA Medical Center, Rhode Island. He completed his medical oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute Medicine Branch. Dr. Bowden is board certified in internal medicine and medical oncology, and he serves on the board of directors at Ziopharm Oncology Inc.

“This is an exciting time to join Cedilla’s Board of Directors,” said Dr. Bowden. “Cedilla’s unique approach to addressing undruggable targets, coupled with the team’s deep drug development expertise, has the potential to bring much needed therapies to patients. I look forward to working with the board and the management team to advance the next generation of targeted molecular therapeutics, with the goal of enabling even greater reach, precision and impact.”

About Cedilla Therapeutics

Cedilla Therapeutics is a private biotechnology company developing targeted novel small molecule therapeutics directed to unrecognized allosteric binding sites and uncovering novel ways to access key disease drivers. The company employs a target-centric approach and integrates a multidisciplinary set of tools to design novel drug discovery screens that recapitulate the relevant functional state of validated disease drivers that have, to date, eluded conventional therapeutic modalities. For more information, please visit www.cedillatx.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

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