Bangalore, India – 23 March 2010. Connexios Life Sciences Pvt Ltd, a drug discovery company focused on discovering and developing new drugs for the treatment of metabolic diseases, today announces that pharmaceutical industry veteran, Rolf Stahel, has been appointed as non-Executive Chairman.
Rolf Stahel, a Swiss national, joined Shire Pharmaceuticals Group plc in March 1994 as its Chief Executive. At that time the company was privately held and had an estimated value of approximately $30m with revenues of $3m and 50 employees. During his 9 year tenure, he implemented six mergers and acquisitions, building Shire in to a FTSE 100 company with a market capitalisation of approximately $3.2bn, revenues of $1.1bn, and 1800 employees. Mr Stahel has received various awards for his contributions to the life science sector, including the Informa award for Global Chief Executive Officer of the Year (2001) and “Most Significant Contribution to UK Life Sciences” from the London Stock Exchange (2003).
Prior to joining Shire, Mr Stahel worked for 27 years with Wellcome plc in Switzerland, Italy, Thailand, Singapore and the UK. As Regional Director, based in Singapore, Mr Stahel was responsible for 18 Pacific Rim countries. His last position with Wellcome was as Director of Group Marketing, reporting to the Chief Executive.
Mr Stahel serves as non-executive chairman of a small group of international pharma companies.
Dr Suri Venkatachalam, Connexios’ Chief Executive, said, “2010 is going to be a significant and key year for us as we complete pre-clinical development of some key programs in our discovery portfolio and get ready to initiate clinical development. We are delighted to have Rolf join us on our Board at this time, bringing with him his wealth of experience in growing and developing innovative pharmaceutical companies. Connexios is a young company and we will undoubtedly benefit from his strategic input as we begin to build our profile outside of India.”
Rolf Stahel said, “I am very impressed by the quality and ambition of the team at Connexios. Their approach to drug discovery is based on a new paradigm which has already created a rich and diverse proprietary pre-clinical pipeline based on small molecules. These novel drug candidates show very interesting potential as new treatments for Type 2 diabetes, Dyslipidemia and diabetic complications.”
About Connexios
Connexios is a privately-held company focused on the discovery and development of proprietary small molecule therapies for metabolic diseases, including Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, Dyslipidemia and Diabetic complications. Connexios leverages a unique Translational Network Biology paradigm based on a systems level network model for the identification and validation of novel targets and biomarkers as well as a proprietary Phenotypic screening platform to create drug candidates with high clinical relevance. The company has a rich and diverse pipeline of pre-clinical and discovery-stage small molecule programs based on a portfolio of differentiated and novel targets that modulate key mechanisms associated with glucose and lipid metabolism. Connexios is supported by Nadathur Holdings and Investments - a prominent Bangalore based private investor with a long term vision to support and build innovative life science companies in India.
For additional information about our pipeline and programs, please go to www.connexios.com.
