CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Mersana, a privately-held cancer therapeutics company, announced today that Russell C. Petter, PhD, has joined the company as Vice President of Research and Ullrich S. Schwertschlag, MD, PhD as Vice President of Clinical Development.
"We are pleased to have Russ and Ullrich join our senior management team," said Julie A. Olson, PhD, President and CEO of Mersana. "They possess the skills and depth of experience that will contribute to success at Mersana as they lead the effort to bring our first product to the clinic and expand our pipeline of novel oncology products. We expect that their previous experience in the research and development of small molecules and proteins, coupled with the utility of our Fleximer(TM) platform to make safer and more efficacious cancer drugs, should generate significant value to the company and ultimately to patients and physicians."
Dr. Petter has fifteen years of experience in drug discovery and a solid record of advancing projects into the clinic. As a member of the Biogen-Idec management team since 1996, he helped build the small molecule program there, leading efforts in both oncology and immunology. From his team, Adentri(TM) has completed Phase II trials for the treatment of renal insufficiency in heart failure patients. Prior to Biogen, Dr. Petter was a group leader in Sandoz Pharmaceuticals where he worked in the areas of oncology, immunology, sepsis, and cardiovascular disease from 1991-1996. He attended Dartmouth College (AB, 1978), Duke University (PhD, 1983), and was a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Post-doctoral Fellow at Columbia University. As an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Petter made significant contributions in the fields of allosteric synthetic receptors and enzyme inactivation.
Dr. Schwertschlag has eighteen years of experience in drug development ranging from translational medicine to the development of phase III stage compounds in the areas of oncology, hematology and inflammatory diseases. Most recently, Dr. Schwertschlag was head of translational medicine and clinical pharmacology at TAP Pharmaceuticals. Before TAP, he spent ten years at Genetics Institute/Wyeth as head of clinical immunology and clinical pharmacology and was involved in the successful registration of Neumega (IL-11) in oncology and Factor IX. He led several phase I - III programs in autoimmune diseases with biologicals and antibody therapeutics during his tenure at Genetics Institute/Wyeth. From 1988 until 1994, Dr. Schwertschlag was a clinical pharmacologist at the Lilly laboratories involved with inflammatory diseases, CNS diseases and cardiovascular diseases. He attended the University of Freiburg, Germany (PhD, biophysics, 1976) and the University of Heidelberg, Germany (MD, 1975) and was a post-doctoral fellow and instructor at Heidelberg University, and a post-doctoral fellow and instructor at the Merck Foundation at the Health Sciences Center, Denver, Co. He has been a faculty member, attending physician and associate professor in the department of medicine of Duke University, Indiana University and Tufts University.
About Mersana Therapeutics, Inc.
Mersana, a privately-held, venture-backed company, is focused on developing novel oncology agents based on the breakthrough discovery of Dr. Mikhail Papisov of Massachusetts General Hospital, who devised a 'stealth' material called Fleximer(R) that enhances the pharmacokinetics and safety of drugs. Mersana, formerly Nanopharma Corp., licensed the Fleximer patents and six related patent families from the Massachusetts General Hospital. Mersana's pipeline includes compounds with activity against multiple tumor types and human proof-of-concept that are improved by its proprietary technologies.
For further information, contact Mersana COO, Pete Leone at 617-498-0020.
Mersana Therapeutics, Inc.CONTACT: Pete Leone, COO of Mersana, +1-617-498-0020
