




Healthcare Industry News: Heartscape
News Release - June 27, 2011
SciFluor Life Sciences Appoints Life Sciences Executive Arthur Hiller as CEO
Former Merck, Millennium and Medical Device Start-up Executive Takes the Leadership Role to Commercialize Harvard University Advance in Drug Development ChemistryBOSTON--(Healthcare Sales & Marketing Network)-- SciFluor Life Sciences, LLC, a drug development technology company that provides a revolutionary capability to enable late-stage fluorination of pharmaceutical drug candidates, announced that it has appointed Arthur Hiller, recent CEO of venture-backed cardiovascular device start-up Heartscape Technologies, Inc., and former Senior Vice President at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, as its Chief Executive Officer. The company utilizes patented technology developed by Tobias Ritter, PhD., Associate Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, to provide drug companies with a new tool in their arsenal to increase the likelihood of bringing new drug candidates to market.
“Despite its potential to improve stability, potency, bioavailability and other key attributes that enhance the profile of a drug, the addition of fluorine to underlying structures of new drug candidates has often proved elusive or technically challenging to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies,” according to Hiller. “The patented SciFluor technology offers companies a solution to the challenge of fluorination that has the potential to significantly accelerate and improve the drug discovery and development process," he said. Hiller went on to say that “the platform also gives SciFluor an opportunity to identify fluorinated versions of currently marketed products that may support partnerships with drug companies and ultimately offer physicians and their patients new and enhanced treatment options.”
Hiller brings to SciFluor a strong record of successful leadership and start-up experience across pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical devices. Most recently, at Heartscape he raised $22M in B-round funding, built a Management and field team that placed the novel ECG cardiovascular technology in 30 institutions nationwide, and ultimately closed a transaction for the sale of the technology to the medical device subsidiary of a $5B Fortune 1000 company. Prior to Heartscape, Hiller held executive positions in general management, marketing, sales, and business development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Merck and Co.
“We believe the SciFluor technology platform has the potential to be a game-changer in addressing one of the key challenges in drug development," said Chris Silva, CEO of the private equity company Allied Minds, which recently invested $5 million in SciFluor. “Arthur brings a highly relevant balance of experience, creativity and leadership to the SciFluor organization,” he said.
About SciFluor’s Late-Stage Fluorination Technology
SciFluor’s late-stage fluorination technology has been validated across multiple therapeutic areas, including CNS, Infectious disease, Cardiovascular disease and Oncology, with proof-of-concept achieved via fluorinating dozens of marketed compounds. This technology has the potential to add value across the entire drug development process, including: lead optimization, preclinical and clinical development of novel new chemical entities, accessing inaccessible or unexplored therapeutics and lifecycle management of drugs with soon-to expire patents.
About SciFluor Life Sciences, LLC
SciFluor Life Sciences is an Allied Minds-funded company with a late-stage fluorination technology that improves drug properties such as metabolic stability, potency, bioavailability, and blood-brain barrier penetration. The company's late-stage fluorination technology, and its companion portfolio of fluorinated pharmaceuticals, are licensed exclusively from Harvard University. SciFluor's technology enables end-stage or any-stage fluorination of a wide variety of organic compounds. www.scifluor.com
About Allied Minds, Inc.
Allied Minds is a private equity-funded innovation company with offices in Boston and Los Angeles. The company creates startup businesses based on early-stage technology developed at U.S. universities and national labs, and serves as a holding company that supports these businesses with capital, management and shared services. Allied Minds is the premier firm to utilize this novel and fully integrated approach to technology investing. The company’s subsidiary investments span multiple business sectors and offer an attractive risk-return profile, a deliverable timeline and potential products that will be groundbreaking in their respective fields. www.alliedminds.com
Source: SciFluor Life Sciences
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