Healthcare Industry News:  Millennium 

Biopharmaceuticals Personnel

 News Release - October 19, 2009

Aileron Therapeutics Appoints Steven Kafka, Ph.D. as Company's First Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Finance and Operations

Industry Executive Brings Extensive Strategic and Operating Experience to Novel Therapeutics Company

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(HSMN NewsFeed)--Aileron Therapeutics, a biotechnology company discovering and developing a novel class of therapeutics called Stapled Peptides, announced today that it has appointed Steven Kafka, Ph.D., as the Company’s first Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Finance and Operations. This appointment reflects Aileron’s growth and expansion as the company creates a pipeline of novel stapled peptide drugs.

Dr. Kafka will lead Aileron’s strategic and operational finance activities, direct corporate communications, human resources, and operations and support the company’s business development effort. He will report to Joseph A. Yanchik III, Aileron's Chief Executive Officer.

“After securing a significant round of funding earlier this year, Aileron’s strategic focus is now to drive our lead program into clinical development and to expand our work on additional targets through partnerships with pharmaceutical companies,” said Joseph Yanchik, III, Chief Executive Officer of Aileron Therapeutics. “Steve’s deep and broad financial expertise coupled with his strategic background will be invaluable in helping us achieve these important milestones.”

Dr. Kafka brings more than 12 years of experience in finance, strategic planning, business development, operations, corporate communications and early commercial development. Before joining Aileron, Dr. Kafka served as Vice President, Finance for Infinity Pharmaceuticals (NASD: INFI ), where he led finance, investor and public relations and business operations, and was a key member of the team that recently secured an alliance with Purdue Pharma and Mundipharma worth up to $500 million over five years. Previously, Dr. Kafka was Senior Director, Finance, at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where as an inaugural member of the VELCADE® product team he drove strategic planning and alliance management efforts with partner Johnson & Johnson for this novel cancer therapy that today generates more than $1 billion in revenue worldwide. Earlier, Steve was a senior engagement manager with Strategic Decisions Group, providing product and portfolio strategy consulting to large pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Kafka earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University and his B.A. with Distinction and Honors from Stanford University.

“Joining Aileron is a rare opportunity to be at the hub of building what I believe will be a transformative technology,” said Dr. Kafka. “There is enormous potential for our Stapled Peptide product platform to open a new therapeutic frontier. Aileron is uniquely poised to advance a completely novel class of drugs, creating meaningful new medicines for patients and value for our investors.”

About Aileron Therapeutics

Aileron Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company that was first funded in 2005 by Apple Tree Partners to develop and advance a completely new therapeutic modality and class of drugs called Stapled Peptides that are based on discoveries made at Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Stapled Peptide drugs represent the first general solution for modulating protein-protein interactions, which have been identified as critical control points for most human diseases. As such, Stapled Peptide drugs offer a unique opportunity to exploit potentially thousands of currently "undruggable" targets across all human diseases. Aileron is building a robust pipeline of therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, infectious disease, metabolic disease and immune/inflammatory diseases. Aileron Therapeutics is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For additional information, please visit www.aileronrx.com.


Source: Aileron Therapeutics

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