Cancer Expert Dr. Eric Rowinsky to Oversee Oncology Product Development at RRD International

Rowinsky to Serve on RRD International's Product Advisory Board

ROCKVILLE, Md., Feb. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- RRD International, a strategy-driven biotech and pharmaceutical product development company, announced today that Eric Rowinsky, M.D. will oversee oncology product development, serving as a member of the Company's Product Advisory Board.  Dr. Rowinsky is a highly accomplished cancer therapeutics expert with extensive research and product development experience in both classical and targeted anticancer treatments.

"We're excited to add Dr. Rowinsky to our development team and Product Advisory Board.  His guidance, experience, and knowledge will be an enormous asset to the Company, our clients and partners," said Charles (Chuck) Finn, PhD, President, CEO, and Co-Founder of RRD International.  "The coupling of Dr. Rowinsky's scientific and medical knowledge in the field of cancer with RRD's core strategic, regulatory and clinical expertise creates a highly functional, integrated oncology development team. This model offers investment efficiencies compared to conventional approaches as it enables companies to create value in their oncology assets instead of prematurely building costly infrastructure, while simultaneously mitigating development and execution risk," added Finn.  

RRD International delivers tactical, regulatory-driven product development support to companies and investors in the life sciences industry.  Leveraging its in-house strategic and operational expertise, the Company helps clients better plan, manage and execute product development.  Having successfully completed more than 50 product development engagements with a wide range of organizations, RRD International's fully integrated development team works to enable rapid proof of concept, reduce costs, and accelerate value creation.

"With development costs on the rise, companies and investors are actively seeking alternative development models for driving drug candidates through proof of concept faster, at a lower cost and with a greater likelihood of success," said Dr. Rowinsky.  "From large pharmaceutical companies looking to outsource development of non-core assets to emerging biotechs and venture/investment groups seeking to quantify product potential prior to adding fixed-cost infrastructure, RRD's model has broad applicability – especially in the oncology sector."

Dr. Rowinsky was an Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at ImClone Systems, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly and Company from 2005-2009. Dr. Rowinsky continues to serve as a scientific advisor to the company.  From 1996-2010, Dr. Rowinsky served as the Director of the Institute of Drug Development of the Cancer Therapy and Research Center in San Antonio, as well as its Director of Clinical Research, and as a Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center.  Prior to this position, Dr. Rowinsky was an Associate Professor of Oncology at The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.  He is currently an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine.  Dr. Rowinsky has played an integral role in the development of the taxanes and a wide range of both cytotoxic and targeted cancer therapeutics.   He is also Editor-in-Chief of Investigational New Drugs and serves as an Associate Editor/Editorial Board Member for a variety of industry publications including Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research, Annals of Oncology, and Cancer Biology and Therapy. Dr. Rowinsky has published approximately 300 manuscripts in both the preclinical and clinical research fields.  

He received the career development award of the American Cancer Society and the 6th Annual Emil J. Freireich Award for outstanding achievement of a young researcher in clinical cancer therapeutics. He has also served on the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

About RRD International

Founded in 2002, RRD is a strategy-driven product development company.  The Company's development model enables rapid proof-of-concept for biotech and pharmaceutical clients to accelerate value inflection points; reduce costs; and mitigate development as well as execution risk.  RRD offers two distinct types of client engagements:  TacDev® and DevCo®.  The TacDev® model adds development bandwidth and expertise for defined products in companies with minimal infrastructure.  The DevCo® model creates external product development companies where investment is in asset optimization rather than traditional infrastructure.  For more information visit:  www.rrdintl.com.  RRD International: Accelerating the Right Development; Creating Lasting Value.

SOURCE RRD International