PLEASANTON, Calif., June 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Juvaris BioTherapeutics, a private company, today announced the appointment of Lewis T. “Rusty” Williams, M.D., Ph.D., as a Member of Juvaris’ Board of Directors, effective immediately. In commenting on this appointment, Martin D. Cleary, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Juvaris said, “We welcome Rusty to our Board of Directors. His extensive experience and biotech industry successes will be especially useful in building our Company.”
Rusty Williams is the founder of FivePrime, where he serves as its Executive Chairman. Prior to founding FivePrime, Dr. Williams was Chief Scientific Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Chiron Corporation and President of Chiron Technologies. Prior to joining Chiron, Dr. Williams was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of California, San Francisco. Earlier in his career he was on the faculty of Harvard Medical School. Dr. Williams is a co-founder of COR Therapeutics, Inc., and served as a member of its Board of Directors. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Dr. Williams received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Duke University.
In commenting on the appointment, Dr. Williams said, “I am delighted to join Juvaris’ Board of Directors. The Management and Directors are optimistic about Juvaris’ near-term and long-term prospects, and I look forward to being a part of this company’s development as it moves forward into human clinical trials.”
About Juvaris
Juvaris BioTherapeutics was created in 2003 to develop an immunotherapeutic product platform for the treatment of infectious diseases and cancers using lipid-DNA complexes. Cationic lipids are formulated with non-coding DNA (plasmid) to create the JuvImmune Immunostimulant, a lipid-DNA complex, which as a single product will have utility in multiple infectious disease and cancer applications. The JuvImmune product has been shown to be at least 50-times more potent at triggering innate immune activation and interferon release than current immune stimulants.
When combined with disease-specific antigens, the technology creates JuvaVax vaccines capable of activating substantial antibody- and cell-mediated immune responses, particularly induction of cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL). Immunological responses elicited by the lipid-DNA complexes have been successfully demonstrated in both prophylactic and therapeutic settings in a variety of mammals including rodents, rabbits, cats, dogs and non-human primates. This platform provides the opportunity to develop many disease-specific immunotherapy products, for which there are significant unmet medical needs.
The Company recently completed a Series A financing with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as the sole investor. It plans to start two clinical studies in 2008. The first will be a prophylactic vaccine for Influenza A and the second a therapy for chronic Hepatitis B.
About FivePrime
FivePrime is a privately held protein therapeutics discovery and development company located in San Francisco’s Mission Bay. Its proprietary discovery platform allows the rapid screening of the complete set of secreted proteins and their receptors in medically relevant, cell-based assays to identify new biotherapeutics. FivePrime is applying its high throughput biologics discovery system first in the areas of oncology, metabolic disease, immunology and regenerative medicine. FivePrime plans to begin clinical studies in 2007 with its lead products in type II diabetes and cancer. Earlier this year, FivePrime announced a discovery collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim in rheumatoid arthritis. For more information please visit www.fiveprime.com.
Company Contact: Martin D. Cleary Juvaris BioTherapeutics, Inc. 925.399.6200 mdcleary@juvaris.com
Juvaris BioTherapeutics
CONTACT: Martin D. Cleary of Juvaris BioTherapeutics, Inc.,+1-925-399-6200, mdcleary@juvaris.com
