Dr Ismail Kola Joins Astex Board
Cambridge, UK, 25th May 2010
Astex Therapeutics, the UK-based biotechnology company developing targeted therapies for oncology and virology, announced that Dr Ismail Kola has joined its Board of Directors.
Dr Kola is currently Executive Vice President of UCB S.A in Belgium where he was appointed in November 2009 and also holds the title President, New Medicines. Dr Kola joined UCB from Schering Plough Corporation where he was Senior Vice President, Discovery Research and Early Clinical Research & Experimental Medicine at Schering-Plough Research Institute, the pharmaceutical research arm of Schering-Plough Corporation, and Chief Scientific Officer, Schering Plough Corporation.
Prior to Schering-Plough, Dr Kola held senior positions at Merck, as Senior Vice President and Site Head, Basic Research. Prior to that, he was Vice President, Research, and Global Head, Genomics Science and Biotechnology with Pharmacia Corporation, and served as a consultant to SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals where he was also a member of the Genomics Advisory Board.
He holds Adjunct Professorships of Medicine at Washington University, St Louis, Missouri, USA, and at Monash University Medical School, Melbourne, Australia; a Foreign Adjunct Professorship at The Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden; and is a William Pitt Fellow at Pembroke College, Cambridge University, UK. Dr Kola has a Ph.D. in Medicine from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Peter Fellner, Astex’s Non-Executive Chairman, said, “I am delighted that Ismail has decided to join Astex’s Board at this time in the Company’s development. With three of our products about to enter into Phase II clinical trials, Ismail’s exceptionally broad experience in pharmaceutical research and development will be an enormous asset to Astex as we continue to capture the value of the Company’s technology and products going forward”
Ismail Kola said: “I’m pleased to be joining Astex’s Board at such an exciting time in the Company’s development. Astex’s industry-leading and highly productive drug discovery platform, its multiple products in clinical development and its high-profile strategic collaborations with industry leaders, have all helped to define the Company as a “stand out” player in today’s biotechnology sector. I am excited to have an opportunity to help contribute to the Company’s future growth and success.”
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Contact
Jeremy Carmichael, PhD
Director of Business Development
Astex Therapeutics Ltd
436 Cambridge Science Park
Milton Road, Cambridge
CB4 0QA, UK
Tel: +44(0)1223 226200
Fax: +44(0)1223 226201
j.carmichael@astex-therapeutics.com
www.astex-therapeutics.com
About Astex Therapeutics
Astex is a UK-based biotechnology company that discovers and develops novel small molecule therapeutics. Using its pioneering fragment-based drug discovery platform Pyramid™, Astex has built a pipeline of five molecularly-targeted oncology drugs, of which three are currently being tested in clinical trials and two are in pre-clinical development.
In addition to its proprietary research programmes, Astex’s productivity in lead discovery has been endorsed through numerous partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, Bayer-Schering, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson.
For further information on Astex please visit the Company’s website at www.astex-therapeutics.com