Zyngenia, Inc. Promotes Chief Scientific Officer and Hires Chief Business Officer

GAITHERSBURG, Md., Dec. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Zyngenia, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing the next generation of antibody-based drugs called Zybodies™, announced today that it has promoted David M. Hilbert, Ph.D., to Chief Scientific Officer and appointed Daniel L. Menichella as Chief Business Officer.

"Since our start in September 2009, Zyngenia has made tremendous progress in both developing novel multi-specific biological drugs and in validating our technology platform," said Zyngenia President and CEO Peter A. Kiener, D.Phil. "As we build on our discovery and development successes, we continue to build a world-class executive team. The promotion of David Hilbert reflects his outstanding leadership in guiding the R&D direction of our company as we create innovative multi-specific biological drugs that better treat the unmet medical need of patients.   We are also very pleased to welcome Dan Menichella to the Zyngenia team. His depth of experience in business development and corporate strategy in the global biopharmaceutical industry will greatly enhance our ability to grow Zyngenia and the portfolio of drugs that our technology will provide."

Promotion of David M. Hilbert

Dr. Hilbert is a highly successful biotechnology entrepreneur and drug developer.  He joined Zyngenia in October 2009 as Vice President, Research and Development and has been responsible for leading the R&D efforts in the development of multi-specific antibody-based therapeutics. From 2006 to 2009, Dr. Hilbert worked as a consultant with leading scientists, executives, and venture firms in assisting start-up biotechnology companies with the many strategic and operational challenges associated with early-stage drug development.  From 2004 to 2005, he served as Vice President of Research and a member of the senior management team at Cellective Therapeutics, a start-up antibody company acquired by MedImmune, LLC in October 2005. Previously, Dr. Hilbert spent eight years at Human Genome Sciences most recently as Vice President, Research guiding the preclinical development of antibodies and genomics-based therapeutics. He was instrumental in the transformation of the company from a genomics research company to an integrated drug development organization. Prior to joining HGS, Dr. Hilbert was a Staff Fellow in the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. He received his B.S. from Haverford College and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Appointment of Daniel L. Menichella

Prior to joining Zyngenia, Mr. Menichella was the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at Talecris Biotherapeutics from October 2007 to September 2011.  At Talecris, Mr. Menichella led corporate strategy, licensing and acquisition activities and was actively involved in both Talecris' initial public offering and eventual sale to Grifols S.A. of Barcelona Spain in June 2011 for $3.4 billion.  Prior to Talecris, Mr. Menichella served in various capacities related to business development, strategic planning and alliance management at Merck KGaA, the global pharmaceutical and chemical company, from December 2002 until October 2007. Over the course of his five years at Merck KGaA, Mr. Menichella served as Vice President, Business Development; Vice President, Corporate Strategic Planning; and Vice President, Corporate Business Development and Alliance Management. He also played an integral role in Merck's €10.6 billion purchase of Serono; the biotech firm headquartered in Geneva Switzerland and was active in the integration following the transaction. Before joining Merck KgaA, Mr. Menichella was President of MorphoSys USA and Senior Vice President of MorphoSys AG, a German therapeutic antibody company, with primary responsibility for worldwide business development and management of the U.S. business unit. Mr. Menichella earned his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

About Zyngenia, Inc.

Founded in 2008, Zyngenia, Inc. is a privately held biotherapeutics company focused on the development of next-generation multi-specific antibody-based therapeutics. The company uses proprietary patented technology to engineer single molecular entities that interact with two or more targets. The multiple target strategy has created many opportunities for innovative therapeutics with new mechanisms of action that are not achievable with single specificity antibodies. The company has initially focused its Zybody™ development on therapies for various cancers and autoimmune disorders. Zyngenia is headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland. For more information, visit www.zyngenia.com.

SOURCE Zyngenia, Inc.