CrystalGenomics Appoints New Vice President of Business Development

SEOUL, South Korea, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- CrystalGenomics, Inc. (Seoul, Korea) and CG Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Emeryville, California) a leading biopharmaceutical company developing novel small molecule therapeutics announced today the appointment of Eric M. Nelson, Ph.D. as the Vice President of Business Development.

Dr. Nelson's career encompasses 22 years of experience in business development and licensing for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Previously, Dr. Nelson served as Global Head of Business Development at the Indian pharmaceutical company, Advinus Therapeutics. Before that he was Assistant Vice President, Business Development at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career Dr. Nelson held appointments with Becton Dickinson, Athena Neurosciences and SG Cowan. Dr. Nelson received his doctorate degree in molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and he was a post-doctoral fellow in biochemistry at Harvard University.

Joong Myung Cho, Ph.D., President & CEO of CrystalGenomics said: "Bringing Dr. Nelson to our team further strengthens our business development efforts for our next generation NSAID, CG100649. He is an accomplished business development executive with a demonstrated track record in product licensing and negotiating drug development collaborations. His breadth of experience will enable him to be very effective in executing our business strategy and leading our partnership negotiations."

Dr. Nelson said: "The CrystalGenomics CG100649 tissue-specific NSAID program has great significance because there is a huge unmet medical need for safe and effective arthritis and joint pain therapeutics. CrystalGenomics has worked out an expert clinical development program to establish that the drug has potentially superior safety and efficacy profiles than the comparator drugs."

About CG100649

CrystalGenomics is developing a next generation drug for arthritis that has recently completed a Phase IIa clinical trial and is being developed for the US, European and Asian markets. CG100649 is an "inflammation tissue-specific" COX-2 drug designed to deliver sustained levels of drug just to inflamed tissues while maintaining low systemic exposure by binding to carbonic anhydrase (CA) in red blood cells. The drug's unique dual COX-2 and CA binding properties are designed to provide greater safety to cardiovascular, renal, and gastrointestinal tissues than approved traditional NSAIDs or COX-2 inhibitor drugs. There is a huge unmet medical need for more effective and safe anti-inflammatory drugs for osteoarthritis, low back pain and rheumatoid arthritis. CrystalGenomics has used its expert drug development capabilities to develop a potential breakthrough drug.

About CrystalGenomics

CrystalGenomics, Inc. is a publicly-held company dedicated to the discovery and development of novel drug candidates in the areas of cancer, inflammation and infectious diseases. CrystalGenomics' general business model is to develop drug candidates from discovery through preclinical or clinical proof of concept and form alliances with partners for further development and commercialization. The lead candidate, CG100649 is a next generation NSAID which has completed a phase IIa trial in Europe. CG400549 is a novel antibiotic candidate against MRSA and VRSA that has entered a phase I trial in Europe, and CG200745 is an oral/IV HDAC inhibitor for cancer which is IND-ready. The company has competitive and proprietary platform technologies for structural biology, structure-based novel scaffold/lead design, lead optimization and candidate selection. CrystalGenomics is headquartered in Seoul, Korea and its subsidiary, CG Pharmaceuticals Inc., is located in Emeryville, California for US and EU clinical management. For more information on CrystalGenomics, please visit: www.cgxinc.com

SOURCE CrystalGenomics, Inc.