SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Jan. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Corgentech Inc. today announced the election of four individuals to vice president-level positions. The appointments include the promotions of Rolf O. Ehrhardt, M.D., Ph.D. to vice president, preclinical development; Melissa Morandi to vice president, quality assurance; Patricia Richards, M.D., Ph.D. to vice president, clinical research; and Jennifer Cook Williams to vice president, investor relations.
“As we integrate our newly merged company and prepare for commercialization and further late-stage clinical development, it is key that we have the right team in place to achieve our goals, one of which includes filing a new drug application this year for our lead product candidate, ALGRX 3268,” stated John P. McLaughlin, chief executive officer of Corgentech. “We have an executive team with a depth of experience in many critical areas including marketing and commercialization, clinical development and regulatory affairs and believe that Dr. Ehrhardt, Ms. Morandi, Dr. Richards and Ms. Williams will provide even further strength to our leadership team.”
Rolf O. Ehrhardt, M.D. Ph.D., vice president of preclinical development, joined Corgentech in 2003 and most recently served as senior director, Inflammation in the research department. Dr. Ehrhardt has over 15 years of experience in drug development and translational science. Prior to joining Corgentech, he was the founding president of BioSeek, Inc., where he raised nearly $20 million in private financing rounds. Before that, Dr. Ehrhardt was at Protein Design Labs (now PDL BioPharma), where he led a scientific group focused on new target discovery/validation and development of immunotherapeutics. Prior to that, he was a Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG: German Research Foundation) and Fogarty fellow at the National Institutes of Health where his focus was on mucosal immunology and inflammatory bowel disease. He obtained his M.D. and Ph.D. with distinction from the Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Melissa Morandi, vice president of quality assurance, joined Corgentech in 2004 and most recently served as senior director of quality assurance drug and device. Prior to joining Corgentech, Ms. Morandi held director positions in Quality Assurance and Compliance at Biogen Idec Inc. Previously she spent nine years managing several different Quality departments at Genentech, Inc. and supported product launches and regulatory inspections for Genentech’s oncology, cardiac and growth hormone products released during that timeframe. Prior to that, she worked at Amgen Inc. in Quality Assurance supporting product launches, new facility preparations for GMP approval, compliance auditing and lot release for Epogen(R) and Neupogen(R). Before that, Ms. Morandi was employed by the Clinical Laboratory of Saint Francis Hospital, Santa Barbara and Ortho Diagnostics. She holds a B.A. degree from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a M.S. degree in Immunology from California State University at Northridge.
Patricia Richards, M.D., Ph.D., vice president of clinical research, joined Corgentech in December 2005 from AlgoRx Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Richards joined AlgoRx in 2004 where she led the Phase 3 clinical research program for ALGRX 3268 and the clinical research program for ALGRX 4975. From 2000 to 2004, Dr. Richards served as medical director for pain development programs at Purdue Pharma, a privately held pharmaceutical company. Prior to that, Dr. Richards was assistant professor of anesthesiology at New York University, serving as attending physician in the Pain Clinic and in the operating room, as well as working on clinical research programs for pain medications. Before that, Dr. Richards was director of the Pain Management Program at Piedmont and Northside Hospitals which followed her serving as assistant professor and a pain specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Dr. Richards obtained a Ph.D. in pharmacology and an M.D. from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and completed residencies in Internal Medicine and Anesthesiology and a fellowship in Pain Management at Johns Hopkins.
Jennifer Cook Williams, vice president of investor relations, joined Corgentech in 2004 and most recently served as senior director of investor relations. Ms. Williams is responsible for managing the corporate communications and investor relations functions at the company. Prior to joining Corgentech, she was with biotechnology company, Cell Genesys, Inc., for nearly 10 years where she most recently served as director of corporate communications and investor relations. Ms. Williams is on the investor relations advisory committee to the Biotechnology Industry Organization and has served on the board of the Silicon Valley Chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) since 2003. She holds a B.S. degree in Finance/Accounting from Central Washington University.
About Corgentech
Corgentech is a late-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel therapeutic treatments for pain management and inflammation. Corgentech is based in South San Francisco, CA. For more information on the company, please visit www.corgentech.com.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release includes “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “expect,” “estimate,” “project,” “budget,” “forecast,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “may,” “will,” “could,” “should,” “believes,” “predicts,” “potential,” “continue,” and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements in this press release include, without limitation, projected timing of FDA filings and other matters that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from results expressed or implied by this press release. Such risk factors include, among others: whether Corgentech can successfully develop new products and the degree to which these gain market acceptance. Actual results may differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements in this press release. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors is contained in Corgentech’s Form S-4 as well as Corgentech’s Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2004 and most recently filed Form 10-Q.
Corgentech undertakes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances occurring after this press release. You are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.
Corgentech Inc.
CONTACT: Jennifer Cook Williams, Vice President, Investor Relations, ofCorgentech Inc., +1-650-624-9600, or investors@corgentech.com
Web site: http://www.corgentech.com//
