Affinium Pharmaceuticals Welcomes Dr. Barry Hafkin as Chief Medical Officer
Toronto, Ontario and Austin, Texas, April 2, 2007 — Affinium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately held developer of a novel class of highly potent oral antibacterial therapeutics announces the addition of Dr. Barry Hafkin as its Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Hafkin will lead Affinium's clinical development program and establish Affinium's new regulatory team based in Austin, Texas.
An accomplished pharmaceutical executive, Dr. Hafkin brings more than 16 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries to Affinium. As Senior Director of Antibacterial Development and later the therapeutic area leader at Pharmacia, Dr. Hafkin led the successful global development and registration of Zyvox. Zyvox is an antibiotic specifically designed to address some of the most important problems in treating multiple drug resistant bacterial infections. The product now marketed by Pfizer has been widely embraced by the medical communities throughout the world; sales for Zyvox are estimated to be $900 million and growing by 30% per year.
"I am very excited to be leading the development team at Affinium as we prepare our clinical candidate for its Phase 1 trial this year," commented Dr. Hafkin. "The increasing prevalence of staphylococcal infections such as methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) in hospitals and the community means that there is an urgent need for new classes of potent antibiotics like those being developed at Affinium."
"We are very pleased to have Dr. Hafkin join Affinium as the company enters its next phase of drug development," noted Dr. Stuart Collinson, Chairman of the Board of Directors. "Dr. Hafkin's experience at developing new oral and intravenous antibiotics makes him uniquely qualified to lead Affinium's clinical program."
A graduate of the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio, Texas, Dr. Hafkin completed his Postdoctoral Fellow in Infectious Disease at Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford Medical School, Palo Alto, California. Prior to coming to Affinium Dr. Hafkin served as President and CEO of Cumbre Pharmaceuticals, Inc, of Dallas, Texas, and prior to that as Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Advancis Pharmaceutical Corporation, and lead the Boerhinger Ingelheim Departments of Virology and Immunology.
About Affinium Pharmaceuticals
Affinium Pharmaceuticals is a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel anti-infective medicines. AFN-1252 utilizes a unique mechanism of action by directly inhibiting the function of the bacterial fatty acid synthesis (FAS) II pathway. Affinium's FASII antibacterial programs constitute a new antibiotic franchise with the potential for multiple products targeting the FASII pathway. These programs include a broad base of long-term intellectual property: issued and pending composition of matter patents on potent orally available small molecule inhibitors of a new class of antibiotics with a unique mechanism of action, targeting an underexploited pathway.
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