PhaseRx Strengthens Board of Directors and Leadership Team

SEATTLE, Feb. 9, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PhaseRx, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on developing mRNA therapeutics to treat orphan liver diseases, today announced the strengthening of its Board of Directors and leadership team. This includes the appointments of Michelle Griffin (Burris) to the Board of Directors and Helen Tsui as Vice President of Finance, as well as the promotion of Michael Houston, Ph.D., to Chief Scientific Officer. 

Michelle Griffin, MBA, is a seasoned veteran of the biotechnology industry, both as a board member and in executive management. She currently serves as Principal of the Pacific Biotechnology Consulting Group as well as operations consultant for Oncogenex Pharmaceuticals, where she previously served as Executive Vice President. She has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Trubion Pharmaceuticals and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at Corixa, Corp. In addition, she has held strategic and operations planning positions with The Boeing Co. Griffin currently serves on the Virginia Mason Health System and Virginia Mason Medical Center Boards of Directors as well as on the executive advisory board for the Albers School of Business and Economics at Seattle University

Helen Tsui brings more than twenty years of financial management experience, including SEC reporting, M&A due diligence and accounting operations to PhaseRx. She previously served as Vice President, Corporate Controller for Dendreon Corporation. During the course of her 15 years at Dendreon, Tsui managed all accounting functions, SEC reporting and led multiple cross functional teams to support compliance and reporting efforts. Prior to Dendreon, Tsui worked as corporate controller and accounting manager for Data Dimensions and as a senior auditor for BDO Seidman. Tsui received her BA in Business Administration with a major in accounting from the University of Washington and has passed the Certified Public Accountant exam.

Dr. Houston Joined PhaseRx in January 2014 as Vice President, Therapeutics Development. Prior to that he served as Vice President, Chemistry and Formulations for Marina Biotech where he focused on the development of siRNAS and single stranded oligonucleotides. Dr. Houston has also served at Ascent Therapeutics as Vice President, Preclinical Chemistry and CMC; at MDRNA, Inc. as Vice President, Chemistry & Formulations; and at Nastech Pharmaceuticals as Senior Director, Chemistry and Formulations. He received a Ph.D. in bio-organic chemistry and a B.Sc. with honours in chemistry from the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

ABOUT PhaseRx

PhaseRx is a privately held RNA therapeutics company developing a portfolio of products to treat orphan liver diseases. The Company is utilizing its proprietary Hybrid mRNA Technology, which has shown the ability to express messenger RNA therapeutics predictably in selected animal tissues in vivo, thereby overcoming a key challenge of mRNA therapeutics – their delivery. PhaseRx is headquartered in Seattle, Wash. For more information, visit www.phaserx.com.

Contact: 

Julie Rathbun
Rathbun Communications
[email protected]
206.769.9219

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SOURCE PhaseRx, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.phaserx.com