WALTHAM, Mass., and CAMBRIDGE, UK, June 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Domantis, the human Domain Antibody (dAb) therapeutics company, today announced that Gregory Perry has joined the Company as its first Chief Financial Officer. Perry comes to Domantis with over 20 years of experience in senior financial management for major American companies including PerkinElmer, Honeywell and General Electric (GE) and was most recently SVP and CFO at Transkaryotic Therapies (TKT).
Domantis’ Chief Executive Officer Robert Connelly said, “We are delighted that Greg has joined Domantis. He brings an ideal mix of experience in finance, M&A, operations and business development from his career at larger companies. At TKT, he was a key contributor to the company’s turnaround, which included leading a $94 million public fund raising and supporting all due diligence and financial negotiations for the final $1.6 billion sale of TKT to Shire Pharmaceuticals Group, PLC. Greg has dealt extensively and successfully in his career with the SEC, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance requirements and the Wall Street banking and analytical community, skills that are important to Domantis as we move forward.”
Greg Perry spent the first 14 years of his career with GE in positions of increasing responsibility culminating in the role of CFO for GE MedicalSystems Europe, a $1.2 billion business unit based in Paris, France. He then joined Honeywell as CFO of the Automotive Products group where he closed the $400 million acquisition of Prestone Products. Greg spent four years with PerkinElmer, most recently as SVP Finance and Business Development for their Life Sciences business, where his accomplishments included providing financial support for several business acquisitions and disposals and an associated $465 million public financing.
Greg Perry commented, “Domantis is incredibly attractive to me because of its strong technical foundation and talent, an exciting pipeline and the proven ability of the dAb engine to produce a steady stream of therapeutic programs each year. I believe novel dAb products will address diseases such as COPD, asthma, RA, and cancer, positioning Domantis to become a major US biopharmaceutical company creating significant value for patients and investors.”
Notes to Editors
Domantis is a biopharmaceutical company developing human Domain Antibody (dAb) therapeutics to treat many diseases including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and multiple myeloma (MM). The Company has thirteen proprietary therapeutic programs and nine partnered therapeutic programs including those with Bristol Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories. Several of these programs will enter clinical trials in 2007, with further INDs being filed each year thereafter.
dAbs are the smallest functional binding units of human antibodies (IgGs), less than one tenth the size of an IgG. Their remarkable natural properties for stability and solubility coupled with their small size allow dAbs to be far more flexible therapeutic molecules than IgGs. Domantis uses dAbs as the core building block in several therapeutic strategies not possible with IgGs, including dual targeting products, therapeutics targeting cell-surface receptors, and dAb therapeutics delivered to targets in the lung via pulmonary administration. With dAbs, Domantis can build a rich pipeline of novel therapeutics that bring substantial efficacy, toxicity, convenience and cost benefits to patients across many different diseases.
The broad applicability of dAbs and their ability to quickly produce novel therapeutics has made Domantis an attractive partner for the pharmaceutical industry, and it has struck deals with Bristol Myers Squibb, Peptech, Abbott Laboratories, ImClone, Tanox and Argenta Discovery whilst also attracting funding from the European Union for several therapeutic collaborations.
Monoclonal antibodies were invented in the 1970’s at the UK Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB), which has remained at the forefront of therapeutic antibody research since that time. In 1989, scientists in the MRC-LMB laboratories of Sir Gregory Winter published the discovery of dAbs. This discovery led to the creation of an extensive portfolio of intellectual property covering the development and use of dAbs, the binding domains of fully human antibodies. Domantis has exclusive licenses and assignments to these pioneering inventions for dAb products and extensive intellectual property covering dAb libraries, methods of discovery, compositions, and formulations of dAbs. As a result, Domantis is the only company capable of fully exploiting the commercial therapeutic applications of human dAbs.
Sir Gregory and Dr. Ian Tomlinson, world-renowned scientists from the MRC-LMB, launched Domantis in December 2000. Sir Gregory was also a founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) plc. To date Domantis has raised $83 million from investors including Novo Nordisk, MC Life Science Ventures (Mitsubishi), 3i, Gray Ghost, Albany Ventures, MVM Life Sciences Partners LLP, ISIS and Peptech Limited. Domantis employs over 70 staff and has research and development facilities in Cambridge, UK and commercial offices in Waltham, Massachusetts, US. See also http://www.domantis.com.
For more information please contact Robert Connelly, CEO, Domantis + 1 781 250 2833 Ted Agne, ComStrat Group +1 781 631 3117 Nicki Brimicombe, NB PR + 44 1883 732353
Domantis
CONTACT: Robert Connelly of Domantis +1-781-250-2833; or Ted Agne ofComStrat Group +1-781-631-3117; or Nicki Brimicombe of NB PR, +44 1883732353
Web site: http://www.domantis.com//
