HotSpot Therapeutics Expands Board of Directors and Management Team

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 30, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- HotSpot Therapeutics, a biotechnology company pioneering the discovery of nature's regulatory sites to advance allosteric drug discovery, today announced the appointments of industry veterans Victoria Richon, PhD, President and CEO of Ribon Therapeutics, and Samantha Truex, CEO of Quench Bio, to its Board of Directors. The team also announced that Stephanie Krebs has joined as Vice President of Business Development.

"We are delighted to welcome Vicky and Sam to the HotSpot Board," said Bruce Booth, DPhil, Board Chairman and co-founding investor of HotSpot Therapeutics and general partner at Atlas Venture. "Vicky is a scientifically trained executive with both technical and entrepreneurial experience and will provide rich insights as the company advances its novel approach to small molecule drug discovery. Sam has extensive business development and leadership experience and will help shape HotSpot's corporate strategy and initiatives."

With more than 30 years of leadership experience across academia and industry, Dr. Richon is currently President and CEO of Ribon Therapeutics. Before joining Ribon, Dr. Richon held roles as Vice President and Global Head of Oncology Research and Translational Medicine at Sanofi, Vice President of Biological Sciences at Epizyme, and Founder and Executive Director of Aton Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Merck in 2004. Dr. Richon received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Nebraska Medical Center and a BA in Chemistry from the University of Vermont.

Ms. Truex has more than 20 years of experience in the biopharma industry and is currently CEO of Quench Bio. She has previously served as an advisor to Atlas Venture, Chief Operating Officer and Head of Corporate Development at Synlogic, and Chief Business Officer of Padlock Therapeutics. She previously spent 8 years each at Biogen and Genzyme, where she led drug development program teams for three now-approved therapies and executed multiple licensing, collaboration, and acquisition transactions. Ms. Truex earned a BA in biology from Dartmouth College, a BE in biomedical engineering from the Thayer School at Dartmouth College and an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth. 

Stephanie Krebs joins to lead business development for HotSpot Therapeutics.

"Stephanie has a track record of building successful collaborations around highly innovative science," said Jonathan Montagu, CEO and co-founder of HotSpot Therapeutics. "Collaborations with pharma will allow us to extend our allosteric platform to new untapped targets within the landscape of attractive regulatory sites."

Ms. Krebs is a former Vice President of Corporate Development at Swedish Orphan Biovitrum (Sobi). She previously spent 10 years at Biogen where she supported the AVONEX® and TYSABRI® commercial teams and worked to generate strategic partnerships for the company's neurology and immunology pipelines. She played an instrumental role in negotiating and leading four collaborations with Ionis Pharmaceuticals, one of which resulted in the 2017 launch of SPINRAZA® for the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy. Ms. Krebs earned a BS in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Rochester, an MS in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University, and an MBA from the Simon Graduate School of Business of the University of Rochester.

About HotSpot Therapeutics

HotSpot Therapeutics is targeting nature's regulatory mechanisms to create allosteric medicines that exhibit high precision and potency. The company leverages its proprietary SpotFinder™ technology, the first and only platform designed to identify "regulatory hotspots," a unique family of pockets that sit remote from the active site on a protein and are used by nature to control protein function. Using bespoke chemistry approaches, HotSpot is developing a pipeline of first-in-class small molecules for the treatment of serious autoimmune and metabolic diseases. The company has identified more than 100 regulatory hotspots across a range of proteins and pathways. HotSpot's lead compounds include the first and only allosteric inhibitors to target PKC-theta for autoimmune diseases, and S6 kinase, an immuno-metabolic enzyme involved in the regulation of hepatic insulin sensitivity and mitochondrial function – an important new target for NASH and metabolic diseases. In June 2018, HotSpot announced it has raised $45M from leading life-science investors including Atlas Venture and Sofinnova Partners. To learn more visit www.hotspotthera.com.

SOURCE HotSpot Therapeutics

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http://www.hotspotthera.com