Tuan Ha-Ngoc Joins GenPath Pharmaceuticals as CEO; Dr. Steven Clark Joins as CSO
(PRWEB) June 29, 2002
Cambridge, MA, June 26, 2002 – GenPath Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a developer of medicines to treat cancer and other genetic diseases, announced today that Tuan Ha-Ngoc and Dr. Steven Clark, former senior executives at Wyeth and Genetics Institute (GI), have joined the privately held company as President and Chief Executive Officer, and as Chief Scientific Officer, respectively.
At Genetics Institute, Ha-Ngoc and Dr. Clark were members of a small executive team who over a 14-year period created and then, executed GIÂ’s strategic vision, building one of the first commercially successful companies in the history of biotechnology. Ha-NgocÂ’s responsibilities included partnering and commercializing GIÂ’s significant intellectual property base in biotherapeutics, including several significant strategic partnerships with major European and Japanese pharmaceutical companies and the set-up of GIÂ’s own sales force, while in tandem, Dr. ClarkÂ’s focus was both building an extensive base of scientific assets as well as the discovery of several novel cytokines and growth factors. As a result of their work, several first-in-class products advanced not only into clinical development but also through FDA approval, including BeneFix R (recombinant Factor IX) and Neumega R (recombinant IL-11). In particular, the two established the DiscoverEase program, one of the first genomic programs targeted at secreted proteins.
Ha-Ngoc has 26 years of worldwide experience in the healthcare industry, primarily in the biotechnology sector but also in the pharmaceutical, medical devices, and Information Technology areas. For most of his career, he served as Executive Vice President at Genetics Institute and was responsible for Corporate Development, Commercial Operations, European Operations, and Japanese Operations. During his GI tenure, he also led a range of programs including Tissue Growth & Repair R&D, Technical and Regulatory Affairs, Legal Affairs, Investor Relations, and Project Management. Upon acquisition of GI by American Home Products Corporation (now Wyeth), he assumed the position of Corporate Vice President and was responsible for Corporate Strategic Planning and Portfolio Management, Wyeth-Ayerst Global Business Development, and Genetics InstituteÂ’s genomics research platform, DiscoverEase. In recent years, he was co-founder and President & CEO of deNovis, Inc., an enterprise-scale software development company for the automation of healthcare administrative functions. His early career began at Baxter Healthcare in the area of medical devices. Mr. Ha-Ngoc received his MBA degree from INSEAD and his MasterÂ’s degree in Pharmacy at the University of Paris, France. He served on the Board of Fellows, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, and on the Board of Directors of ArQule, Inc. (a publicly-traded biotech company), Phylos, Inc. (a private biotech company) and the International Institute of Boston (a non-profit organization).
Dr. Clark joins GenPath Pharmaceuticals after 21 years of experience in drug discovery with Genetics Institute and Wyeth Research, bringing together unique expertise in both protein and small-molecule therapeutics. For the last four years, Dr. Clark was Sr. Vice President of the combined discovery organizations of Wyeth and GI with responsibility for 1400 scientists working in six different therapeutic areas. During his tenure, Dr. ClarkÂ’s group delivered many clinical candidates to the R&D pipeline, including both proteins and small molecules. A founding scientist at Genetics Institute in 1981, he was the Vice President of Discovery Research for Genetics Institute from 1989 until 1997. He established GIÂ’s successful hematopoiesis program and pioneered the use of functional expression cloning for the isolation of genes for cytokines, growth factors, and their receptors. Among the cytokines cloned in his laboratory included GM-CSF, IL-3, IL-9, IL-11 and IL-12. Dr. Clark did his graduate work in molecular biology at Harvard University with Dr. Richard Losick and post doctoral work with Dr. Paul Berg at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
GenPath employs powerful, proprietary genetic model systems to discover and develop drugs against essential targets critical to the origin, maintenance, and spread of malignant tumors. This novel, high-throughput in-vivo pathway technology platform enables the rapid functional prioritization of only the most relevant drug targets, thus dramatically improving the efficiency of drug discovery. In addition, when coupled with high-throughput genomics and bioinformatics, this platform is designed to enhance drug development through the identification of novel biomarkers as surrogate efficacy endpoints. Beyond oncology, GenPathÂ’s technologies are broadly applicable to other disease states, including cardiovascular, metabolic and neurodegenerative disorders. For more information, please visit the companyÂ’s website at www. genpathpharma. com.
