Eidos Therapeutics Appoints Industry Leaders With Significant Development and Commercial Expertise to Board of Directors
August 07 2020 - 4:30PM
Eidos Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: EIDX), a clinical stage
biopharmaceutical company focused on addressing the large and
growing unmet need in diseases caused by transthyretin (TTR)
amyloidosis (ATTR), today announced that it has added two new
independent directors to its board who bring deep commercial and
strategic experience to the company: Suzanne Sawochka Hooper, the
former executive vice president and general counsel of Jazz
Pharmaceuticals, and Duke Rohlen, the CEO and managing partner of
Ajax Health.
Eidos is developing acoramidis (formerly AG10) as a potentially
best-in-class treatment option for ATTR patients.
Ms. Hooper and Mr. Rohlen will replace departing board members
Rajeev Shah and Eric Aguiar, M.D.
“I feel grateful to be working with Suzanne and Duke as we
continue to execute our Phase 3 clinical trial and prepare for
commercialization. I admire their collective accomplishments
greatly and look forward to learning from them. I’d also like to
thank Eric and Raj for their fine service in shepherding Eidos to
this point. In just a few years we’ve been able to create a
remarkable company and that is poised to help patients at scale,”
said Eidos CEO and founder, Neil Kumar, Ph.D.
Ms. Hooper brings more than 25 years of executive and corporate
leadership experience and sophisticated legal expertise to the
Eidos board. As executive vice president and general counsel at
Jazz Pharmaceuticals from March 2012 through February 2019, she
played an active role in the management and strategic development
of the company during a period of substantial growth. Prior to
joining Jazz, Ms. Hooper was a partner in the Cooley LLP law firm,
representing a broad range of companies and investors in the life
sciences industry and working with boards of directors and senior
management teams on complex legal and strategic matters, including
M&A. Ms. Hooper has been a member of the Board of
Directors of NGM Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. since 2018.
"I'm excited by the potential of acoramidis to offer patients
with ATTR a best-in-class treatment option and impressed by
the incredible progress that Eidos has made,” said Ms.
Hooper. “I'm honored to join the Eidos board and look forward
to working with the entire Eidos team and contributing to the
company’s success during the next stage of the company's
development."
Mr. Rohlen is a serial entrepreneur who has led
five medical technology companies and brings an expertise in
business-building and cardiovascular marketing to the Eidos board.
Before founding Ajax Health, a holding company that funds and
operates innovative healthcare companies, he co-founded and served
as the chairman and CEO of EPIX Therapeutics, which was acquired by
Medtronic in 2019. He also co-founded and served as CEO of Spirox,
which was acquired by Entellus in 2017; and CV Ingenuity, which was
acquired by Covidien in 2013. Previously Mr. Rohlen was the
president of FoxHollow Technologies, which was sold to ev3 Inc. in
2007.
“Acoramidis has the opportunity to fundamentally alter therapy
treatment for patients with ATTR,” Mr. Rohlen said. “I am impressed
by Neil’s relentless work over the last few years to build an
excellent leadership team, advance acoramidis and strengthen the
company. I am thrilled to partner with Eidos and I look forward to
working with the entire board and the executive team to continue to
drive Eidos’ therapeutic innovation and success.”
About acoramidis
Acoramidis (formerly AG10) is an investigational,
orally-administered small molecule designed to potently stabilize
tetrameric transthyretin, or TTR, thereby halting at its outset the
series of molecular events that give rise to TTR amyloidosis, or
ATTR. In a randomized, placebo-controlled Phase 2 clinical trial in
patients with symptomatic ATTR-CM, acoramidis was generally well
tolerated, demonstrated greater than 90% average TTR stabilization
at day 28, and increased serum TTR concentrations, a prognostic
indicator of survival in a retrospective study of ATTR-CM patients,
in a dose-dependent manner. The open label extension of this Phase
2 clinical trial, or the Phase 2 OLE, identified no safety signals
of potential clinical concern associated with administration of
AG10 15 months after study initiation. In an exploratory analysis,
lower rates of all-cause mortality (including death and cardiac
transplantation) and cardiovascular hospitalizations were observed
in study participants than in placebo-treated ATTR-CM patients in
the ATTR-ACT study. Cardiac biomarkers and echocardiographic
parameters were stable in the acoramidis Phase 2 OLE.
Acoramidis is currently being studied in a Phase 3 clinical
trial in patients with ATTR-CM (ATTRibute-CM), and we expect to
initiate a Phase 3 clinical trial of acoramidis in patients with
ATTR-PN (ATTRibute-PN) in the second half of 2020.
Acoramidis was designed to mimic a naturally-occurring variant
of the TTR gene (T119M) that is considered a rescue mutation
because co-inheritance has been shown to prevent ATTR in
individuals also inheriting a pathogenic, or disease-causing,
mutation in the TTR gene. To our knowledge, acoramidis is the only
TTR stabilizer in development that has been observed to mimic the
stabilizing structure of this rescue mutation.
About transthyretin amyloidosis (ATTR)
There is significant medical need in ATTR given the large
patient population and limited current standard of care. ATTR is
caused by the destabilization of TTR due to inherited mutations or
aging and is commonly divided into three distinct categories:
wild-type ATTR cardiomyopathy (ATTRwt-CM), mutant ATTR
cardiomyopathy (ATTRm-CM), and ATTR polyneuropathy (ATTR-PN). The
worldwide prevalence of each disease is approximately 400,000
patients, 40,000 patients and 10,000 patients, respectively.
All three forms of ATTR are progressive and fatal. For patients
with ATTRwt-CM and ATTRm-CM, symptoms usually manifest later in
life (age 50+), with median survival of three to five years from
diagnosis. ATTR-PN either presents in a patient's early 30s or
later (age 50+), and results in a median life expectancy of five to
ten years from diagnosis for untreated patients. Progression of all
forms of ATTR causes significant morbidity, impacts productivity
and quality of life, and creates a significant economic burden due
to the costs associated with progressively greater patient needs
for supportive care.
About Eidos Therapeutics
Eidos Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company
focused on addressing the large and growing unmet need in diseases
caused by transthyretin (TTR) amyloidosis (ATTR). Eidos is
developing acoramidis, a potentially disease-modifying therapy for
the treatment of ATTR. For more information, please visit
eidostx.com. Media Contact: Carolyn Hawley Canale
Communications (619) 849-5382 carolyn@canalecomm.com
Investor Contact: John Grimaldi Burns McClellan
(212) 213-0006 ext. 362 jgrimaldi@burnsmc.com
Source: Eidos Therapeutics, Inc.
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