Pronutria Appoints Dr. Peter Mueller as President of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Pronutria Inc., which is developing novel oral biologics to restore cellular homeostasis in a range of serious medical conditions, announced today that Peter Mueller, Ph.D., has been appointed President of Research and Development and Chief Scientific Officer.  Dr. Mueller will lead Pronutria's efforts to discover and develop products to maintain health and treat a variety of serious medical conditions across a wide spectrum of indication areas including skeletal muscle, metabolic, gastrointestinal, neurodegenerative and rare diseases.

Pronutria is transforming health by unlocking the potential of homeostatic amino acid biology.  Pronutria has developed a proprietary library with over one billion orally available proteins and the tools to select, validate and express them to elicit specific physiologic benefits.  When delivered orally, product candidates release temporally controlled amino acid supplies that can impact health and disease.

"Peter is one of the most accomplished scientific and visionary leaders in the pharmaceutical industry," said Robert Connelly, CEO of Pronutria.  "He has played a leading role in bringing multiple successful breakthrough treatments to millions of patients and has a unique ability to convert the potential of a powerful platform into products that can have an enormous impact on health."

"Amino acids are fundamental in the regulation of cellular processes for maintaining health throughout the body," said Dr. Mueller. "A wide range of diseases with serious unmet medical needs are impacted by maladapted amino acid homeostasis, which can come from injury, disease, aging and therapeutic intervention. Leveraging this key underappreciated biology gives Pronutria a powerful handle to affect health and disease. I am excited to join the team of world-class scientists at Pronutria, and look forward to working with the team in restoring amino acid imbalance to fundamentally transform the lives of people with severe, debilitating and degenerative medical conditions."

Prior to Pronutria, Dr. Mueller was the Executive Vice President of Global Research and Development & Chief Scientific Officer for Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc., where he provided strategic oversight for Vertex's worldwide drug discovery and development programs, with specific emphasis in Hepatitis C, cystic fibrosis, immune-mediated inflammatory diseases, cancer and neurological diseases. His leadership led in 2011 to the successful approval and launch of INCIVEK® (Hepatitis C), and a NDA, MAA and numerous sNDA submission(s) for KALYDECO® (cystic fibrosis) with the first approval in the US on January 31, 2012 followed by consecutive approvals in the EU, Canada and Australia. Both breakthrough therapies were awarded the prestigious Prix Galien award (US, INCIVEK®) or its European counterpart the Galenus Preis (KALYDECO®).

Previously, Dr. Mueller served as Senior Vice President, Research and Development, for Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he was responsible for Research in North America and the Development of all drug candidates of the company's worldwide portfolio in North and South America, Canada and Japan, beginning in 1997. His leadership was instrumental in the global development of Spiriva®, Combivent® and Atrovent®.  He also led research programs in the areas of immunology, inflammation, cardiovascular disease and gene therapy on a global basis. During his time with Boehringer Ingelheim, Dr. Mueller oversaw the discovery of numerous development candidates, held several positions in basic research, medicinal chemistry and management in different centers of Boehringer Ingelheim worldwide.

Dr. Mueller received both an undergraduate degree and a Ph.D. in Chemistry at the Albert Einstein University of Ulm, Germany, where he also holds a Professorship in Theoretical Organic Chemistry. He completed fellowships in Quantum Pharmacology at Oxford University and in Biophysics at Rochester University.

About Pronutria

Pronutria is developing novel oral biologics to restore cellular homeostasis in a range of serious medical conditions.  Using a proprietary platform, Pronutria is creating oral biologics to address health conditions caused or worsened by imbalances in amino acids that lead to harmful changes in cellular homeostasis. Pronutria's products improve health by activating specific physiologic events that focus on amino acid imbalances and act to restore cellular homeostasis.  Founded by the Flagship Ventures innovation foundry, VentureLabs, Pronutria has built a proprietary library containing over one billion polypeptides from which it selects candidates delivering amino acids with great precision and reproducibility.  For more information, please visit www.pronutria.com.

Contact:

For Pronutria:  Emily Rossi
Ruder Finn
212.593.6431
[email protected]

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SOURCE Pronutria

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