CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CATB), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, today announced the promotion of Andrew Nichols, Ph.D. to Chief Scientific Officer and Angelika Fretzen, Ph.D., to Senior Vice President of Product Development. Dr. Nichols has more than 25 years of drug development experience, leading efforts from target discovery through translational research and early clinical development for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Dr. Fretzen has 15 plus years of entrepreneurial drug discovery and development experience.
“Andy and Angelika have provided tremendous value to Catabasis in supporting the development of edasalonexent (CAT-1004) in Duchenne muscular dystrophy and also the advancement of our pipeline in rare diseases,” said Jill C. Milne, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Catabasis. “We look forward to their further leadership of and contributions to Catabasis.”
Dr. Nichols joined Catabasis in 2014 and previously served as Senior Vice President, Research & Non-Clinical Development. Prior to joining Catabasis, Dr. Nichols was Associate Vice President, Cardiometabolic Diseases at Merck Research Labs, leading drug discovery and early clinical development programs. Prior to Merck, Dr. Nichols was Vice President of Preclinical Research at Zafgen, Vice President of Research at Alinea, Vice President of Drug Discovery Project Leadership at Millennium and Director of the Alliance Management Group at SmithKline Beecham. He has worked across multiple therapeutic areas (cardiovascular, metabolic, oncology and inflammation), utilizing a combination of internal and external sourcing strategies. He holds his B.Sc. in Pharmacology from the University of Leeds, England, and his M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Cardiovascular Pharmacology from the University of Cambridge, England.
Dr. Fretzen joined Catabasis in 2014 and previously served as Vice President, Product Development & Program Management. Prior to joining Catabasis, she was Vice President of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Development at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Fretzen led Pharmaceutical Development and CMC-related aspects of Ironwood's linaclotide program through the approval as Linzess® in the US and as ConstellaTM in Canada and Europe. She has been responsible for discovery and development programs for small molecules and peptides in a variety of different disease areas. Prior to joining Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Fretzen was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. She holds a Diploma (M.S.) in chemistry from the University of Würzburg in Germany and her Ph.D. in organometallic and synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. In addition, Dr. Fretzen has received an MBA from Suffolk University in Boston.
About Catabasis
At Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, our mission is
to bring hope and life-changing therapies to patients and their
families. Our SMART (Safely Metabolized And Rationally Targeted) linker
drug discovery platform enables us to engineer molecules that
simultaneously modulate multiple targets in a disease. We are applying
our SMART linker platform to build an internal pipeline of product
candidates for rare diseases and plan to pursue partnerships to develop
additional product candidates. For more information on the Company's
drug discovery platform and pipeline of drug candidates, please visit www.catabasis.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161005005183/en/
