MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Jan. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- ChemoCentryx, Inc. today announced the appointment of Edward E. Penhoet, Ph.D., to the company's Board of Directors. Dr. Penhoet is recognized for his 25 years of leadership and contributions in the public and private sectors of the life sciences industry, including as co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Chiron Corporation (now Novartis).
Dr. Penhoet is currently the President of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, overseeing the philanthropic activities of the Foundation since 2004. Dr. Penhoet has also held the position of Director with Alta Partners, a venture capital partnership investing in life science companies, since 2000. From 1998 to 2002, he served as Dean of the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1981, Dr. Penhoet co-founded Chiron Corporation and served as its Chief Executive Officer until 1998. Prior to founding Chiron, he was a faculty member of the Biochemistry Department of U.C. Berkeley. Dr. Penhoet also serves as the Vice Chairman of the Independent Citizen's Oversight Committee of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine which was created by the passage of Proposition 71, also known as the stem cell initiative.
A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences and a member of the American Society of Biological Chemists, Dr. Penhoet has co-authored more than 50 scientific articles and papers. In addition to ChemoCentryx, he serves as a Director of Zymogenetics, Scynexis, Metabolex and Renovis, Inc.
Dr. Penhoet earned his A.B. in biology from Stanford University, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Washington. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego.
About ChemoCentryx
ChemoCentryx, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing orally-administered therapeutics that target the chemokine and chemoattractant systems in order to treat autoimmune diseases, inflammatory disorders and cancer. The chemokine system is a complex network of chemokine molecules, or ligands, and receptors that regulates inflammation. Based on its proprietary drug discovery and drug development platform, ChemoCentryx has internally generated several clinical and preclinical-stage programs, each targeting distinct chemokine and chemoattractant receptors with different small molecule compounds. ChemoCentryx's lead compound, Traficet-EN(R), a specific CCR9 antagonist, is currently in a multi-national clinical trial, called PROTECT-1, for patients with moderate-to-severe Crohn's disease. For more information, please refer to http://www.chemocentryx.com.
ChemoCentryx believes that certain statements in this release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions regarding future events and business performance and involve certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. These statements are often, but not always, made through the use of words or phrases such as believe, will, expect, anticipate, estimate, intend, plan and would. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of performance. They involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from any results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed or implied by any forward-looking statement. Some of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from estimates or projections contained in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to (i) that ChemoCentryx anticipates incurring significant losses for the foreseeable future, (ii) dependence on the success of Traficet-EN(TM); (iii) delays in obtaining or a failure to obtain regulatory approval for product candidates, (iv) failure of any approved product to achieve significant commercial acceptance in the medical community or receive reimbursement by third-party payors, (v) the timing, success and cost of preclinical research and clinical studies, (vi) the timing, acceptability and review periods for regulatory filings, (vii) the availability of corporate partners, (viii) uncertainties relating to patent protection and intellectual property rights, (ix) the impact of competitive products and technological changes, (x) competition from other pharmaceutical or biotechnology companies, (xi) the availability of capital and the cost of capital, (xii) other vagaries in the biotechnology industry and (xiii) other risks. ChemoCentryx undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to conform the statement to actual results or changes in the Company's expectations.
CONTACT: Susan M. Kanaya, Senior Vice President, Finance and Chief
Financial Officer, or Markus J. Cappel, Ph.D., Chief Business Officer,
+1-650-210-2900, investor@chemocentryx.com; or Karen L. Bergman,
+1-650-575-1509, or Susan Pietropaolo, +1-845-638-6290, mobile,
+1-201-923-2049, both of BCC Partners, for ChemoCentryx, Inc.
Web site: http://www.chemocentryx.com/
