PARIS, May 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ExonHit Therapeutics S.A. (Alternext: ALEHT), a drug and diagnostic discovery company, announces today that Ms Deborah Smeltzer has been appointed member of its Supervisory Board at the annual shareholders’ meeting on April 27, 2007.
Ms Smeltzer is Vice President, Operations and Chief Financial Officer of Dynavax Technologies Corporation, headquartered in California. Previously, she served as Vice President and General Manager of the genetic analysis business at Applied Biosystems. Prior to Applied Biosystems, Ms Smeltzer served as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President for Genset SA, a Paris-based global genomics company, which was then traded on the Nasdaq and on the Paris stock exchange.
Ms Smeltzer brings more than 20 years of operating and financial experience in the biotechnology field, both in Europe and in the USA, and knowledge of the markets of genomic analysis, diagnostics, and vaccines. She holds a BS in biological sciences and an MS in medical microbiology from the University of California, and an MBA from Stanford University.
“I am delighted to join the Supervisory Board of ExonHit and look forward to contributing to the analysis of strategic opportunities for the growth of ExonHit, based on my experience in this field and of the American market” said Deborah Smeltzer.
The Supervisory Board is chaired by Mr Laurent Condomine, Vice President of Business Development and Corporate Strategy of AstraZeneca, and Mr Edmund Olivier de Vezin, General Partner of Oxford BioScience Partners, is vice chairman of the Board. The other Board members are Mr Christophe Jean, Mr Patrick Langlois, and Mr Michel Picot. Mr Gilles Brisson resigned in February 2007. The Board is comprised of a majority of independent members.
“We are very pleased to have Deborah on our Board. Her professional background and her knowledge of shareholder expectations and of the competitive environment of the biotechnology industry will be a strategic asset at a time when ExonHit is going into new projects” said Bruno Tocque, President of the Management Board of ExonHit. “Also, we are very grateful to Mr Gilles Brisson for his valuable advice, most particularly in the field of clinical development programs, during the 6 years he sat on the Board.”
About ExonHit Therapeutics
ExonHit Therapeutics is the world’s leader in the analysis of alternative RNA splicing, a process which when deregulated plays a key role in the onset of various diseases.
ExonHit has a multi-component commercial strategy to capture the maximum value from its leadership in alternative splicing. The Company is already generating revenues from a new generation of microarrays, SpliceArrayTM family of products that enable life science researchers to detect crucial disease-associated information. These products are marketed worldwide in conjunction with Agilent and Affymetrix. In the field of diagnostics, ExonHit has a major collaboration with bioMerieux to develop completely novel predictive blood-based cancer diagnostics, which could play a key role in improving the treatment of breast cancer and other major cancers and develops its own projects for the detection of other chronic diseases such as Alzheimer’ disease or atherosclerosis.
In parallel, ExonHit is developing its own therapeutic pipeline in the field of neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. The Company has advanced drug candidates into clinical trials and is evaluating several promising pre-clinical compounds. ExonHit also has a strategic partnership with Allergan, to discover and develop new therapeutics in the areas of pain, neurological diseases and ophthalmology. This collaboration provides on-going research funding to ExonHit.
Founded in 1997, ExonHit is headquartered in Paris, France and has a U.S. facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The Company is listed on Alternext of Euronext Paris since November 17, 2005.
Contacts: ExonHit Therapeutics Bruno Tocque, C.E.O. Tel: +33-1-58-05-47-00 Philippe Rousseau, C.F.O. philippe.rousseau@exonhit.com
ExonHit Therapeutics SA
CONTACT: Contacts: ExonHit Therapeutics, Bruno Tocque, C.E.O., Tel:+33-1-58-05-47-00; Philippe Rousseau, C.F.O., philippe.rousseau@exonhit.com
