Healthcare Industry News: Zometa
News Release - September 24, 2007
Nodality Names David R. Parkinson, MD as Its CEO
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(HSMN NewsFeed)--Nodality, Inc., an emerging diagnostics company, today announced the appointment of David R. Parkinson, M.D., the former senior medical officer at Biogen Idec, as its first president and chief executive officer. The appointment is effective September 24, 2007. Nodality, Inc. is a privately held company funded by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB) and TPG Biotechnology."The combination of the scientific expertise of Dr. Garry Nolan (of Stanford) and the founding CEO leadership of Dr. Risa Stack (KPCB) has propelled Nodality forward at record speed in the discovery, development and implementation of its novel diagnostic platform to serve patients and their doctors," said Brook Byers, Managing Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. "David is the perfect executive to build a successful medical enterprise on this great foundation."
"On behalf of all of the Board members, I wish to express our tremendous enthusiasm and excitement about this appointment," said Fred Cohen, M.D., PhD, partner, TPG Biotechnology. "David's scientific and medical skill, as well as his leadership and business acumen, make him the ideal candidate to drive Nodality's elegant technology forward to commercialization."
Nodality, Inc. is a privately-held emerging biotechnology company focused on patient-specific classification of disease with technology licensed from Stanford University and the laboratory of Dr. Garry P. Nolan. "Together with the scientific team at Nodality, I am delighted to now be working with Dr. Parkinson, whose outstanding scientific and clinical insights will drive this technology to create important diagnostic and therapeutic tools to aid in patient care," said Dr. Garry Nolan of the Stanford University School of Medicine. "David understands intuitively the power of linking mechanistic assays of patient responses to clinical outcomes-a true future of personalizing treatments to disease indications."
"Dr. Parkinson is recognized as a key thought leader throughout the oncology sector, and the combination of his medical expertise coupled with his genuine passion for making a difference in cancer research made him the perfect choice for this important role," said Christos Richards of Levin & Company, who served the Nodality Board in the CEO recruitment process.
Dr. Parkinson, 57, had served as senior vice president, Oncology Research and Development since joining Biogen Idec in March 2006 from Amgen, where he was vice president, Oncology Development. At Biogen, he oversaw all oncology discovery research efforts and the development of the oncology pipeline. Previously, he held several senior oncology positions at Novartis. During his tenure at Amgen and Novartis, Dr. Parkinson was responsible for clinical development activities leading to a series of successful global drug registrations for important cancer therapeutics, including Gleevec, Femara, Zometa, Kepivance, and Vectibix.
Dr. Parkinson worked at the National Cancer Institute from 1990 to 1997, serving as Chief of the Investigational Drug Branch, then as Acting Associate Director of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, before leaving for Novartis. He had previously also held academic positions at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas and New England Medical Center of Tufts University School of Medicine.
He received his M.D. from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine in 1977, with Internal medicine and Hematology/Oncology training in Montreal at McGill University and then in Boston at New England Medical Center. Currently, Dr. Parkinson serves on the National Cancer Policy Forum of the Institute of Medicine. He is a past Chairman of the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Biologics Advisory Committee and is a recipient of the FDA's Cody Medal. He currently is a member of the FDA's Science Board. He was recently elected to the Board of Directors of the American Association of Cancer Research, and continues to serve as Chairperson of the AACR Finance Committee.
Dr. Parkinson said, "My passion for improving therapy for cancer patients logically led me to Nodality, whose technology neatly meets a constant challenge in therapeutics: uniting new, targeted therapeutics with patients who are most likely to benefit from them. I look forward to advancing this technology to improve the treatment and development of new therapies for patients with cancer and hematological disorders."
About Nodality
Nodality is a leader in the discovery and development of next-generation personal diagnostics targeting cell-signaling pathway "nodes" detected in well-defined cellular sub-populations from individual patients. Nodality's initial primary areas of focus include hematological malignancies and autoimmune disorders. Nodality's technology profiles signaling networks in single cells by multiparametric phospho-flow cytometry. The Company's novel technology platform can address many aspects of drug development, including biomarker identification and analysis, drug discovery research and development, patient stratification, and pharmacodynamic monitoring. Nodality's powerful new approaches reveal the role of crucial nodes in the pathways of phospho-protein driven intracellular signaling networks. These diagnostic methods have the potential to be used for prognostic purposes, for tracking disease progression, for patient monitoring, and for prediction of individual patient response to FDA-approved drugs and drug candidates in development. For more information, please visit Nodality's website at www.nodalityinc.com.
Source: Nodality
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