Artemis Therapeutics appoints Brian M. Culley as CEO
Artemis Therapeutics announced the appointment of Brian M. Culley, M.A., M.B.A. as its Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Culley is an entrepreneurial and innovative biotech executive with 25 years of experience, spanning diverse operational areas including strategy, finance, licensing, and clinical development.
“I am excited to help Artemis achieve rapid growth by advancing its drug development programs into clinical trials. I believe my experience building the teams, infrastructure, and institutional awareness necessary to advance drug candidates through clinical development, as well as my close involvement with patient and advocacy groups, will increase our value and visibility within the investment and disease communities,” stated Mr. Culley. “Our initial focus is to develop Artemisone as a superior treatment option for life-threatening diseases such as malaria and cytomegalovirus (CMV). These diseases impair global health and economics and require urgent action, as current treatments are limited by toxicity and resistance concerns. Meanwhile, millions of lives in the U.S. and around the world are being impacted, most of them children. We are encouraged by the preliminary results we have seen in clinical and non-clinical studies in these two diseases and our progress with Artemisone is accelerated due to extensive development and clinical work conducted by Bayer HealthCare and our two academic partners. Artemisone will provide a robust foundation for the Company’s growth and we look forward to providing investors with a roadmap of milestones from which to monitor our progress.”
Most recently, Mr. Culley served as Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the board of directors of Mast Therapeutics, a publicly-held, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, which was acquired in April 2017 by Savara. During his tenure as CEO, Mr. Culley grew the company from two to 50 employees and internal consultants, oversaw clinical development of multiple mid- and late-stage product candidates in hematology/oncology and cardio-renal indications, ran the largest interventional trial ever-completed in sickle cell disease, and expanded the company’s development pipeline via three acquisitions, including Aries Pharmaceuticals, which contributed to the acquisition of Aironite by Savara. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Orphagen Pharmaceuticals.
Mr. Culley’s earlier experience includes operational roles in business development for Immusol, technology transfer for the University of California San Diego, and as a research scientist for Neurocrine Biosciences. He received a B.S. in biology from Boston College, a masters in biochemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an M.B.A. from The Johnson School of Business at Cornell University.