San Diego, CA, September, 10th, 2012 -- CalAsia Pharmaceuticals announced today the appointments of Allan E. Rubenstein, MD and Khatereh Ahmadi, PhD. Dr. Rubenstein will join the company as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Dr. Ahmadi has joined as an executive consultant and will lead business development, corporate partnering, and investment-related activities.
Dr. Rubenstein is currently Clinical Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at NYU Langone Medical Center and is the founder and former CEO of NexGenix Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company focused on drug development for neurofibromatosis and related sporadic tumors. In addition he is Vice-Chairman and Lead Director of The Cooper Companies (COO, NYSE), a medical device company, and was a director of BioClinica (BIOC, NASDAQ), a clinical trials CRO.
Dr. Ahmadi is an experienced business development executive with a strong scientific background. Dr. Ahmadi was head of business development for Piramed, a UK oncology start-up acquired by Roche in 2008, and is a consultant to several start-ups, including a New Zealand based antibody diagnostics company she founded.
“CalAsia’s proven success for rapid discovery of CNS-penetrating lead compounds for its drug discovery programs in neurologic disorders provides an excellent opportunity to advance these programs into preclinical and clinical development,” said Dr. Rubenstein. Dr. Ahmadi added, “Fragment-based lead discovery in combination with translational studies using stem cell technologies will accelerate identification of ‘drug-like’ compounds that have a greater chance of success in clinical trials.”
“We are delighted to have Drs. Rubenstein and Ahmadi join CalAsia,” said Dr. Prasad, Co-founder and Vice President of Research. “Their combined experience in drug discovery and business development and leadership will greatly accelerate CalAsia’s goal toward advancing our early stage drug discovery programs into preclinical and clinical development and successful corporate partnering.”
About CalAsia Pharmaceuticals: CalAsia Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a privately held early stage pharmaceutical company focused on the rapid discovery of drug-like small molecules. CalAsia core technologies combine functional fragment screening with X-ray crystallography co-crystallization to rationally design and synthesize New Chemical Entities (NCEs) with drug-like properties. By differential fragment screening of closely related isotypes, CalAsia also develops selective NCEs early in the drug discovery process, thereby increasing the quality of potential drug candidates. Currently, CalAsia has several drug discovery programs for the treatment of unmet medical needs for CNS, cancer, metabolic, inflammation, and infectious diseases.
The CalAsia team has decades of drug discovery experience and has been involved in numerous drug discovery programs that have resulted in multiple clinical candidates as well as one marketed drug.
