MyoKardia Appoints Tassos Gianakakos to Chief Executive Officer
MyoKardia Inc. a company focused on developing innovative therapeutics to treat genetic heart disease today announced the appointment of Tassos Gianakakos to chief executive officer. Mr. Gianakakos succeeds founding CEO Charles Homcy M.D. who will remain on MyoKardia’s board of directors.
“I am delighted to welcome Tassos to the MyoKardia team given his track record of growing and transforming research-stage organizations with meaningful drug platforms into clinical and commercial-stage companies” said Dr. Homcy who is also a venture partner at Third Rock Ventures. “Tassos is a proven industry leader with deep scientific financial operational and business development experience which will be invaluable to MyoKardia as the team continues to develop our platform targeting genetic heart disease and rapidly advance our lead cardiomyopathy program toward the clinic.”
Mr. Gianakakos brings more than 17 years of broad-based biopharmaceutical expertise to MyoKardia. He joins the company from MAP Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Allergan in March 2013) where he was most recently senior vice president and chief business officer. Prior to MAP Mr. Gianakakos led the formation of Codexis Inc. where he served as president and senior vice president business development and global head of Codexis’ Pharmaceuticals Business Unit. Before forming Codexis Mr. Gianakakos was director of business development at Maxygen where he led the company’s business development efforts for its vaccine and bio-industrial platforms. Prior to Maxygen Mr. Gianakakos was a process engineer in Merck & Co.’s vaccine division. Mr. Gianakakos holds B.Sc. degrees in chemical engineering and economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology an M.Sc. in biotechnology from Northwestern University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.
“MyoKardia is pioneering a revolutionary new approach to developing cardiovascular therapies for patients who desperately need them” said Mr. Gianakakos. “By bringing together recent scientific breakthroughs in cardiovascular genetics muscle biology and biophysics we target the disease at its source truly transforming the way cardiomyopathies and other heart-related conditions will be treated. I am thrilled to join the MyoKardia team and work with our exceptional and incredibly passionate scientists and renowned founders to pave the way for a truly personalized approach for patients with genetic heart disease.”
Genetic cardiomyopathies are conditions that arise from mutations in critical heart muscle proteins. Dilated and hypertrophic cardiomyopathies (DCM and HCM) are the most common forms of heart muscle disease and the most common diagnosis leading to cardiac transplantation. More than 60 million people worldwide have a cardiomyopathy or carry a cardiomyopathy gene mutation including approximately 1 million patients in the U.S.
About MyoKardia Inc.
MyoKardia is dedicated to revolutionizing the treatment of genetic heart disease. The company’s proprietary platform combines recent breakthroughs in muscle biology with leading-edge cardiovascular disease genetics. This personalized genetically targeted approach focuses on the underlying cause of disease and has the potential to drastically improve the treatment of cardiomyopathies and ultimately a broader spectrum of cardiovascular disease including heart failure. Founded by world leaders in muscle biology and cardiovascular disease genetics MyoKardia was launched in 2012 with funding from leading life sciences investor Third Rock Ventures. For more information please visit www.myokardia.com.
More: http://www.pharmiweb.com/pressreleases/pressrel.asp?ROW_ID=80189#.UnJlkxD4Z6Y#ixzz2jJDgG0uS
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