Peptilogics Strengthens Leadership Team with Three Strategic Appointments

PITTSBURGH, March 17, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Peptilogics, a biotechnology platform company leveraging computational design to discover novel peptide therapeutics, announces the appointments of Dr. David Huang as SVP, CMO, Nick Nystrom as SVP, Computing & Data, and Nicholas Pachuda as SVP, Portfolio Strategy & Development. These leaders bring decades of experience in anti-infective drug development, orthopedic infection, computing and solutions architecture, and portfolio management. They join Peptilogics' leadership team to help drive its lead peptide anti-infective for the treatment of prosthetic joint infections (PJIs) through the clinic while continuing to discover new, optimally designed peptide therapeutics using Peptilogics' computational platform.

"We are thrilled to welcome David, Nick, and Nicholas to Peptilogics," said Jonathan Steckbeck, PhD, MBA, Founder and CEO of Peptilogics. "Their combined depth of experience and breadth of skills across a range of industries creates a powerful force for Peptilogics. Together, we will continue to progress our lead asset, PLG0206, through the clinic to treat patients suffering from PJIs and leverage our computational drug discovery and design platform to identify additional, novel peptide therapeutics."

Dr. Nystrom is a globally-recognized leader in computer and system architecture for enabling scientific discovery and a pioneer in converging artificial intelligence (AI) with high-performance computing (HPC). He brings over 25 years of experience developing software architecture to enable groundbreaking biomedical research to Peptilogics and most recently served as Chief Scientist at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. During his time at CMU, Dr. Nystrom also worked as a research physicist at Carnegie Mellon after earning his PhD in computational chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Pachuda brings over three decades of experience in orthopedics and a strong track record in transitioning businesses from early product development through commercialization. Most recently, he served as the Worldwide Vice President of External Innovation and Enabling Technologies for DePuy Synthes, the Orthopedic Franchise at Johnson & Johnson, where he led a global team to deliver high value external assets to the DePuy Synthes portfolio. Prior to this, Dr. Pachuda served in various senior leadership roles in marketing, business development, and clinical strategy at DePuy Synthes, Arthrex, Scient'x, and Small Bone Innovations. Dr. Pachuda is a University of Pittsburgh graduate and holds a Doctorate of Podiatric Medicine from the Pennsylvania College of Podiatric Medicine. He also completed an AO Orthopedic Trauma Fellowship.

Dr. Huang has approximately 20 years of clinical, academic, industry, and research experience in infectious diseases and is well versed in the design, execution of Phase I - III clinical trials for both antibacterials and antiviral agents. He currently serves as an attending physician at the Department of Veterans Affairs and has worked extensively in the pharmaceutical industry with leadership positions at Pfizer, ContraFect Corp, Motif Bio, and X-Biotix Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Huang earned his MD and PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Texas at School of Medicine and School of Public Health.

"I am very excited to join the Peptilogics leadership team and work together to advance PLG0206 through the clinic to reach patients suffering with prosthetic joint infections," said Dr. David Huang, CMO of Peptilogics. "PJIs are a serious, life threatening condition that can result from arthroplasty or joint replacement procedures. With the number of total joint replacements performed in the U.S. expected to quadruple by 2030 and extremely limited treatment options available for PJIs, new, effective solutions are desperately needed. With PLG0206, our novel peptide anti-infective, we believe we can address this rapidly growing unmet need."

About Peptilogics 
Peptilogics is a clinical-stage biotechnology platform that designs and develops novel peptide therapeutics. The company is supported by investors including Presight Capital, Founders Fund, and Peter Thiel, who are known for their investments in companies such as AbCellera, Compass Pathways, SpaceX, and Synthego. Through its computational platform, Peptilogics is advancing drug discovery to uncover new, previously unexplored chemical design space while ensuring biological viability and scalable manufacturing. Peptilogics' internal anti-infectives pipeline includes a novel clinical stage anti-infective, PLG0206, that has been granted FDA Orphan Drug Designation and Qualified Infectious Disease Product Designation for its initial focus on the treatment of prosthetic joint infections, an unmet medical need. More information on Peptilogics can be found at www.peptilogics.com as well as on Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCE Peptilogics

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