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BOSTON, Nov.1, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Pfizer executive joins AZTherapies focused on Alzheimer's Disease, ischemic stroke, and other neurological diseases by creating novel treatments for neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation.
AZTherapies, Inc. is a privately held advanced clinical stage pharmaceutical company located in Boston, MA that is developing breakthrough treatments for Alzheimer's disease, ischemic stroke, and other neurological diseases associated with neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation. The lead product candidate, a combination therapy treatment of two re-engineered drugs, ALZT-OP1, is being studied in a Phase 3 Early Alzheimer's clinical trial, the COGNITE trial.
"We are excited to welcome Dr. Karen Reeves to AZTherapies as President and Chief Medical Officer," said Dr. David Elmaleh, AZTherapies Founder, Chairman, and CEO. "Dr. Reeves brings tremendous experience in over twenty years in big pharma and provides additional clinical development, business development, and management expertise to the talented AZTherapies management team. We are delighted to have Dr. Reeves' leadership as we move forward with our advanced product candidates."
Dr. Reeves joins AZTherapies with over twenty years of experience in Phase 1 through 4 drug developments, across multiple therapeutic areas, including neuroscience, oncology, immunology, and women's health. Most recently, Dr. Reeves held the position of Vice President, Head Global Clinical Submissions Quality and Innovation, Worldwide Research and Development, Pfizer, Inc. At Pfizer, Dr. Reeves held multiple leadership positions in Worldwide Research and Development and Worldwide Regulatory and Safety, including Vice President, Neuroscience Clinical Development. Dr. Reeves has proven leadership in successful global drug development programs and approvals, including three marketed drugs in neuroscience. Under her direct leadership, Chantix gained FDA Priority Review and won the Prix Galien Award for Best Pharmaceutical, considered to be the highest accolade in Pharmaceutical Research and Development and has been approved in more than 80 countries. Dr. Reeves has extensive experience in neurology and psychiatry both as a clinician drug developer and in business development. Prior to her most recent position at Pfizer, Dr. Reeves was Head Global Medical Science at Astellas (Tokyo) Pharma Global Development based in the US and Netherlands. Dr. Reeves earned her B.A. from Yale University and her M.D. from University of Vermont Medical School and has held faculty positions at Harvard Medical School and Tufts Medical School.
"I'm thrilled and honored to join AZTherapies' senior management at this most important time," said Dr. Reeves. "Alzheimer's disease and stroke are devastating and heartbreaking neurological diseases for patients and families that demand better and newer treatments. The COGNITE trial in early AD is currently enrolling patients globally and has randomized over 280 patients. AZTherapies' combination therapy has the potential to address multiple mechanisms associated with amyloid plaques, neurodegeneration, and neuroinflammation that could potentially dampen neural death and neuroinflammation and lead to better outcomes for patients with Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases."
"AZTherapies' early AD treatment aims to prevent amyloid peptide oligomerization and plaque formation and lessen the neuroinflammatory response, the two triggers of Alzheimer's disease progression. Slowing these two processes, that constitute the present main scientific hypotheses, is the Holy Grail for disease modification," said AZTherapies' Scientific Advisory Board chair, Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, Joseph. P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Vice-Chair, Neurology; Director of Genetics and Aging Research Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital.
"Cognitive and behavioral impairment after stroke is unfortunately very common, and often even more disabling than paralysis from stroke. Treatment options are severely limited and no study has previously attempted such an early intervention to avert this outcome," added Dr. Scott Kasner regarding the planned AZTherapies stroke study. Dr. Kasner is the Director, Comprehensive Stroke Center, Sadri-Vakili, Ghazaleh Distinguished Professor, Professor of Emergency Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania.
"AZTherapies' use of scales for cognition and function and brain biomarkers that are related to brain pathology increase the accuracy of early AD diagnosis and homogeneity of the randomized subjects for the COGNITE Trial," said Dr. Peter Conti, Professor of Radiology, Director Molecular Imaging Center, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California and a member of the Board of Directors at AZTherapies. Dr. Conti is a key expert on neuro-anatomy and early Alzheimer's diagnostics.
About AZTherapies, Inc.:
AZTherapies, (www.aztherapies.com) is an advanced clinical stage drug development company in Boston, MA. AZTherapies is innovating the discovery, development and commercialization of novel Alzheimer's Disease and ischemic stroke treatments which could fundamentally improve patient treatment, quality of life and disease management. The company's lead program, ALZT-OP1 is a combination therapy comprising two re-engineered drugs with well-known profiles with intellectual property protecting drug combination, dosing, formulation and drug properties that will deliver the drug to blood and brain. The company platform also includes ALZT-OP2, a potential disease modifying AD drug treatment in advanced preclinical development, AZHALER-D, a single dose disposable novel inhaler in late stage development, and ALZT-QoL, a neurodegenerative drug treatment designed to improve the quality of life of AD patients using a compensatory M1 (a muscarinic receptor agonist) with ligand/receptor mechanism to improve brain network connectivity. AZTherapies drugs are based on technologies developed at Massachusetts General Hospital, a Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital.
Contact:
Bill Garofano
1-617-318-3424
bill.garofano@aztherapies.com
