Arvinas Hires Jim Winkler as Chief Scientific Officer

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Arvinas Inc., a biotechnology company creating a new class of drugs based on protein degradation, today announced the appointment of Jim Winkler, Ph.D., to the position of Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Winkler will be responsible for the discovery and development of potential drug compounds that will target specific disease-driving proteins for degradation. In addition, the company added Scott Biller, Ph.D., to its Scientific Advisory Board.

"Jim brings to us an impressive track record of discovering molecules that have racked up success in mid- to late-stage clinical trials," said Tim Shannon, M.D., CEO of Arvinas and Venture Partner for Canaan Partners. "Notably, his experience is particularly strong in oncology and inflammation, two areas that are very promising for our protein degradation approach."

Dr. Winkler brings over 30 years of drug discovery and development experience at Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline and, most recently, Array BioPharma. He has built and led teams working in early drug discovery, translational research and clinical development. At Array, his team moved over 16 drugs from the lab into the clinic, many of which are now in Phase 2 and Phase 3 development. He has actively engaged in partnering with multiple large pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Winkler earned his Ph.D. in pharmacology at the Medical College of Pennsylvania and did his postdoctoral work with Dr. Stanley Crooke at SmithKline Beecham.

Newly appointed Scientific Advisory Board member Dr. Biller serves as Chief Scientific Officer at Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc. He joined Agios in 2010 and was previously Vice President and head of global discovery chemistry at the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR). Prior to that, he held the positions of Vice President, pharmaceutical candidate optimization at the Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) Pharmaceutical Research Institute and Executive Director of drug discovery chemistry for the BMS research site in Lawrenceville, NJ. Dr. Biller earned a B.S. in chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the California Institute of Technology and served as an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University.

About Arvinas
Arvinas Inc. is creating a new class of drugs based on protein degradation, which has the potential to open up areas of drug development that were previously closed because of the technical limitations of target inhibition. The company's technology is built on the research of Craig Crews, PhD of Yale University and has primary application in oncology indications as well as potential in inflammatory, autoimmune and rare diseases.

SOURCE Arvinas Inc.