CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Scholar Rock (NASDAQ: SRRK), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the treatment of serious diseases in which protein growth factors play a fundamental role, today announced that its Board of Directors has approved several promotions within the senior management team, including Gregory Carven, Ph.D. to Chief Scientific Officer, Junlin Ho, J.D. to General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, and George Nomikos, M.D., Ph.D. to Senior Vice President, Medical and Clinical Sciences, Head of Muscle Therapeutic Area.

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Gregory Carven, PhD (Photo: Business Wire)

“I am delighted to announce the promotion of these talented leaders who have made significant contributions to the advancement of our clinical programs, scientific platform, and overall organization,” said Tony Kingsley, President and CEO of Scholar Rock. “We are well positioned for another transformative year as we pursue important clinical and preclinical milestones, including 12-month results from our TOPAZ Phase 2 trial in SMA and initial clinical response and safety data from the DRAGON trial of SRK-181 in immuno-oncology. Our commitment to develop and cultivate team members continues to be a cornerstone of our company and contributes to our collective success as we advance therapies to help patients in need.”

Dr. Carven joined Scholar Rock in 2014 and served as Vice President, Antibody Discovery and Protein Sciences before being promoted to SVP in January 2018 and Head of Research in June 2020. Working with the esteemed leaders on our scientific advisory board and science, innovation, and technology committee, as CSO, he will lead discovery, biology, and translational activities and drive the advancement of our scientific platform. Dr. Carven is a recognized leader, with more than 15 years of experience in the discovery and development of antibody therapeutics. He was recognized for the invention of Keytruda® (pembrolizumab) with his receipt of an award for “Inventor of the Year” in 2016 by the Intellectual Property Owners Education Foundation. Prior to joining Scholar Rock, Dr. Carven led hybridoma based antibody discovery efforts at Pfizer and held positions of increasing responsibility at Merck Research Laboratories (formerly Schering Plough Research Institute and Organon Biosciences). He received his Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and continued his research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Ms. Ho joined Scholar Rock in 2018 and served as Senior Vice President, Head of Legal and Corporate Secretary since March 2020. As General Counsel, she will oversee all legal affairs, including corporate governance, compliance, and intellectual property. She has over 13 years of experience leading and advising life sciences companies on various legal aspects associated with corporate governance, business development, financing, securities law, commercial product planning and launches, and international operations. Before joining Scholar Rock, Ms. Ho served as Associate General Counsel at Foundation Medicine and Associate General Counsel at Ziopharm Oncology. She was previously a corporate attorney in the life sciences practice at the law firm Ropes & Gray LLP. Ms. Ho received her B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and J.D. from University of Chicago Law School.

Dr. Nomikos joined Scholar Rock as Vice President, Head of Medical Research, Muscle Franchise in 2019 and has been instrumental in leading the apitegromab clinical program in spinal muscular atrophy. As SVP, he will be responsible for leading all medical and clinical sciences functions focused on muscle therapeutics. Dr. Nomikos is a physician-scientist with 35 years of academic and industry experience in neuroscience, neuropharmacology, and central nervous system therapeutics. He received his M.D. from the University of Athens and Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. He was an Associate Professor Neuropharmacology at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, before he joined the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to Scholar Rock, Dr. Nomikos held various senior scientific and clinical positions and directed global clinical programs and discovery projects at Biogen Inc., Sage Therapeutics, Takeda Pharmaceuticals Company Ltd., Astellas Pharma, Inc., Amgen, Inc., and Eli Lilly and Company.

About Scholar Rock
Scholar Rock is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of innovative medicines for the treatment of serious diseases in which signaling by protein growth factors plays a fundamental role. Scholar Rock is creating a pipeline of novel product candidates with the potential to transform the lives of patients suffering from a wide range of serious diseases, including neuromuscular disorders, cancer, fibrosis and anemia. Scholar Rock’s approach to targeting the molecular mechanisms of growth factor activation enabled it to develop a proprietary platform for the discovery and development of monoclonal antibodies that locally and selectively target these signaling proteins at the cellular level. By developing product candidates that act in the disease microenvironment, the Company intends to avoid the historical challenges associated with inhibiting growth factors for therapeutic effect. Scholar Rock believes its focus on biologically validated growth factors may facilitate a more efficient development path. For more information, please visit www.ScholarRock.com or follow Scholar Rock on Twitter (@ScholarRock) and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/scholar-rock/).

Scholar Rock® is a registered trademark of Scholar Rock, Inc.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding Scholar Rock’s future expectations, plans and prospects, including without limitation, Scholar Rock’s expectations regarding its growth, strategy, progress and timing of its clinical trials for apitegromab, SRK-181, and other product candidates and indication selection and development timing, its cash runway, the ability of any product candidate to perform in humans in a manner consistent with earlier nonclinical, preclinical or clinical trial data, and the potential of its product candidates and proprietary platform. The use of words such as “may,” “might,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend,” “future,” “potential,” or “continue,” and other similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include Scholar Rock’s ability to provide the financial support, resources and expertise necessary to identify and develop product candidates on the expected timeline, the data generated from Scholar Rock’s nonclinical and preclinical studies and clinical trials, competition from third parties that are developing products for similar uses, Scholar Rock’s ability to obtain, maintain and protect its intellectual property, the success of Scholar Rock’s current and potential future collaborations, including its collaboration with Gilead, Scholar Rock’s dependence on third parties for development and manufacture of product candidates including to supply any clinical trials, Scholar Rock’s ability to manage expenses and to obtain additional funding when needed to support its business activities and establish and maintain strategic business alliances and new business initiatives, and the impacts of public health pandemics such as COVID-19 on business operations and expectations, as well as those risks more fully discussed in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in Scholar Rock’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2020, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in Scholar Rock’s subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking statements represent Scholar Rock’s views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing its views as of any subsequent date. All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Scholar Rock undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.

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