EMERYVILLE, Calif., May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- NovaCal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that Dr. Diane Cooper has been appointed Vice President of Clinical Research and Wound Management.
Dr. Cooper has joined NovaCal from Johnson and Johnson Wound Management, Ethicon, Inc. where she served as Worldwide Medical Director. Dr. Cooper has previously held the positions of Clinical Director, Wound Healing Research at Human Genome Sciences and Director, Wound Healing Research at Ortho McNeil Pharmaceutical Inc. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Cooper was Associate Director of the Institute for Tissue Regeneration, Repair and Rehabilitation in Florida. In addition, she has held faculty positions at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, University of Texas School of Medicine, University of California at San Francisco School of Nursing and Michigan State University School of Nursing. Dr. Cooper has a Ph.D. in Nursing-Wound Healing from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing and has held a Robert Wood Johnson Post Doctoral Fellowship in Wound Healing at the University of California in San Francisco.
Dr. Cooper continues to play a leading role in the advancement of wound healing science and has held several positions with the Wound Healing Society, including that of Board Member and Secretary. In addition, Dr. Cooper has served as an advisor to the Food and Drug Administration.
“We are very honored that Dr. Cooper is bringing her years of clinical practice, academic research and industrial experience to reinforce NovaCal’s team,” said Dr. Ron Najafi, Chairman and CEO of the company. “As NovaCal expands its areas of opportunity, we want to ensure that our most advanced program, the development of NVC-101 for the treatment of chronic wounds, receives the level of experience and attention that it deserves. Few individuals exceed Dr. Cooper’s experience in this area.”
It is anticipated that Dr. Cooper’s addition will enable NovaCal’s Vice-President of Clinical Affairs, Dr. Kenneth Krantz, M.D., Ph.D., to focus his extensive drug development and clinical operations experience on other areas of development for NovaCal’s antimicrobial products. More details on these additional programs will be announced at a later date. With this move, NovaCal intends to accelerate the development of other applications that address medical conditions impacting millions of patients.
Dr. Cooper said, “NovaCal is in Phase II clinical trials with NVC-101 in infected chronic wounds. Since infection is an obstacle to wound healing, this product will likely play an important role in reducing the time that it takes patients to heal and may make it possible for the body to heal wounds that would otherwise never heal. With over five million patients in the United States suffering from chronic wounds, this is a critically important clinical program, and I am looking forward to supporting it.”
NovaCal Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing a new class of antimicrobial compounds, the aganocides. Derived from the ancient Greek word “aganos” that meant “gentle” that came to be applied also to a quick death, NovaCal calls its compounds aganocides because they combine potent, rapid broad-spectrum microbial killing and low toxicity not found in currently used topical anti-microbials.
NovaCal Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
CONTACT: Jack O’Reilly of NovaCal Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,+1-510-899-7251
Web site: http://www.novacal.com/
