NOVATO, Calif., April 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc., a biotechnology company focused on developing treatments for rare and ultra-rare genetic disorders, today announced the appointment of Shalini Sharp as Chief Financial Officer and Senior Vice President, Finance, effective May 21, 2012. In this new role at Ultragenyx, Ms. Sharp will be a member of the Senior Management Team and be responsible for leading the corporate finance function.
“Shalini’s broad experience and proven track record of strategic financial management in the biotechnology industry will contribute to advancing our development pipeline, evaluating future opportunities for our company, and executing our strategic vision,” said Emil D. Kakkis, MD, PhD., Chief Executive Officer of Ultragenyx. “We look forward to Shalini joining Ultragenyx at this exciting time for the company, and we are confident that she will be a valuable addition to our executive management team.”
Ms. Sharp joins Ultragenyx from Agenus Inc. (formerly Antigenics Inc.), a publicly traded biotechnology firm, where she has served as Chief Financial Officer since 2006, and was most recently appointed a member of the Board of Directors. She joined Agenus in 2003 and held increasing roles of responsibility spanning strategic planning, corporate development, investor relations, corporate finance and business development. Prior to Agenus, Ms. Sharp held similar roles at Elan Pharmaceuticals from 1998 to 2003, including serving as chief of staff to the Chairman of the Board of Directors during that company’s restructuring. With 16 years of industry experience, Ms. Sharp has spearheaded numerous financing and business development transactions that have been critical to the success of Agenus and Elan. Prior to Elan, Ms. Sharp was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company as well as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, specializing in pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Ms. Sharp holds both a BA, magna cum laude, and MBA, from Harvard University.
About Ultragenyx
Ultragenyx is a privately held, developmental stage biotechnology company committed to bringing life-enhancing therapeutics for patients with rare and ultra-rare genetic diseases, also known as orphan and ultra-orphan diseases, to market. The company focuses on rare metabolic diseases that affect small numbers of patients, but for which the unmet medical need is high and there are no effective treatments. Ultragenyx intends to build a sustainable pipeline of safe and effective therapies to address these underserved diseases. Ultragenyx’ lead program, UX001, is being evaluated as a potential treatment for hereditary inclusion body myopathy (HIBM), also known as GNE myopathy.
The company is led by an experienced management team in rare disease therapeutics. Ultragenyx is striving toward an improved model for successful rare disease drug development which has the potential to increase efficiency while maintaining appropriate safety and efficacy standards. The company believes that it can deliver significant value to patients by building a high quality pipeline of rare disease therapeutics and efficiently transforming good science into great medicine.
For more information on Ultragenyx, please visit the company’s website at www.ultragenyx.com.
SOURCE Ultragenyx Pharmaceutical Inc.
