CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, the leading sirtuin therapeutics company, announces the hiring of Garen Bohlin as Chief Operating Officer. Mr. Bohlin has over 20 years of experience in leadership, management, and business roles with pioneering biopharmaceutical companies. As Sirtris Pharmaceutical’s Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Bohlin will lead the company’s business, operations, and commercialization functions and will report to Christoph Westphal, CEO of Sirtris.
“Sirtris is delighted to welcome Garen who brings to our team a wealth of experience in strategy, management, and implementation in the biopharmaceutical industry,” said Christoph Westphal, Ph.D., CEO of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals. “Garen’s unique capabilities and superior leadership further strengthen Sirtris’ experienced management team as we continue to advance the breakthrough therapeutic potential of sirtuin modulators to meet unmet patient needs.”
Garen joined Sirtris from Syntonix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he served as President and CEO from the company’s founding in 1999 until 2005. Prior to Syntonix, he spent 14 years in executive management at Genetics Institute, Inc. (GI), a pioneer in the biotechnology industry. In his last role at GI, he served as Executive Vice President with responsibility for essentially all of the non-scientific areas of the company that comprised approximately half of the company’s then 1,600 employees. He also played a leading role in structuring and implementing a strategic alliance with American Home Products (now Wyeth) that resulted in the eventual acquisition of GI at an implied valuation of approximately $3 billion. Garen is a director of Acusphere, Inc. (ACUS), Praecis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (PRCS), Syntonix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and also served as a director and past chair of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council.
“I am truly excited to join Sirtris,” said Mr. Bohlin. “The promise of harnessing the recently-discovered sirtuin pathways to develop breakthrough therapeutics represents an incredible opportunity. I look forward to bringing my management and leadership capabilities to the team to help rapidly deliver the robust pipeline of novel products that our leading edge science enables.”
About Sirtris Pharmaceuticals
Sirtris Pharmaceuticals is a biopharmaceutical company developing and commercializing novel therapeutics that modulate sirtuins, a recently discovered family of enzymes that promotes the body’s natural defense against disease. Also known as class III histone deacetylases (HDACs), sirtuins are attractive drug targets for a variety of unmet medical needs including metabolic and neurological diseases. Sirtris has built the dominant sirtuin intellectual property estate and know-how, with a comprehensive suite of reagents, proprietary assays, transgenic animal models, and biomarkers.
Sirtris Pharmaceuticals was founded by Rich Aldrich, Richard Pops, Paul Schimmel, David Sinclair and Christoph Westphal, and has raised $45 million in private equity from leading venture capital firms including Polaris Venture Partners, Techno Venture Management, Cardinal Partners, Skyline Ventures, Three Arch Partners, The Wellcome Trust, Novartis Bioventures Fund, Cargill Ventures, Hunt Ventures, and Red Abbey. The company’s headquarters are in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For additional information, please visit http://www.sirtrispharma.com.
Media Contact: Kathryn Morris KMorris PR 845-635-9828
Sirtris Pharmaceuticals
CONTACT: Kathryn Morris of KMorris PR, +1-845-635-9828
Web site: http://www.sirtrispharma.com//
