SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov. 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Raven biotechnologies, inc., a privately held company focused on the development of monoclonal antibody therapeutics (MAbs) for treating cancer, today announced the appointment of Michael Kranda as chairman of the board. Mr. Kranda replaces Bill Young who remains on the Raven board as a director.
Mr. Kranda led life sciences venture investments as Managing Director for Vulcan Capital through 2006 and continues to consult for Vulcan. He sits on the board of directors of several companies including BiPar Sciences and PTC Therapeutics. Mr. Kranda was the chief executive officer of Oxford GlycoSciences (OGS) for six years, establishing the company as the leading proteomics platform-based drug discovery company. Prior to that, Mr. Kranda spent 12 years at Immunex (now Amgen) where he served as president and chief operating officer and director.
“We are delighted to have Michael’s continuing leadership as board chair, and I look forward to working with him to advance our goals.” said George F. Schreiner, M.D., Ph.D., Raven’s chief executive officer.
About Raven
Raven biotechnologies, inc. (http://www.ravenbio.com) is a privately held biotechnology company focused on the development of monoclonal antibody therapeutics for treating cancer. Raven’s lead product candidate, RAV12, targets adenocarcinomas and is in clinical development for the treatment of gastrointestinal and other cancers. Raven’s discovery process simultaneously identifies cell-surface drug targets and the antibody therapeutics to regulate them. Our focus on biological function allows us to rapidly identify novel target antigens and therapeutic candidates in their native configuration in the intact cell membrane. Our integrated approach is based on proprietary methods for optimizing the production of MAbs targeting cell-surface proteins, including the use of human tissue-specific progenitor and tumor stem cell lines developed at Raven.
To date Raven has identified multiple candidate therapeutic MAbs for many cancer indications including lung, colon, pancreatic, prostate, breast, and ovarian cancer.
CONTACT: Stephen Worsley, Vice President, Business Development of Raven
biotechnologies, inc., sworsley@ravenbio.com, +1-650-624-2662; or Ellen
Rose of Availe Communication, +1-650-387-8746, for Raven biotechnologies,
inc.
Web site: http://www.ravenbio.com/
