Bioasis Appoints Deborah Rathjen as Chair of the Board of Directors
BIOASIS TECHNOLOGIES announced that Dr. Deborah Rathjen, B.Sc. (Hons), Ph.D., MAICD, FTSE, has been appointed as chair of the board of directors. She takes over from former board chair and chief executive officer Rob Hutchison, who retired on Dec. 4, 2017. Dr. Rathjen will continue to serve as a member of the compensation committee and has stepped down as chair of the audit committee, but will continue to serve as a member of the audit committee. A new audit committee chair will be appointed at a later date.
“We are absolutely delighted that Dr. Rathjen is the new chair of our board,” said Mark Day, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, Bioasis. “I first met Deborah in 2013 when I was heading neuroscience business development at Bristol Myers Squibb and was immediately impressed with her drive, enthusiasm and passion for science and drug development. Deborah is an inspirational leader and has built an amazing company at Bionomics with a really energized and synergistic team who have accomplished a leading CNS pipeline. From business a development perspective, Deborah has a strategic collaboration with Merck in Alzheimer’s Disease and under her leadership, Bionomics has developed exciting phase 2 studies in anxiety disorders and in post-traumatic stress disorder. Deborah’s expertise in running public companies paired with her scientific prowess makes her the ideal chair for our company at this transformational time.”
“I look forward to working with my fellow board members and the Bioasis executive team to help guide Bioasis into clinical development,” said Dr. Rathjen. “Delivering medicines across the blood-brain barrier remains a significant challenge and Bioasis intends to solve this problem with our differentiated xB3 platform technology, which offers tremendous potential for value creation. The utility of the xB3 platform and its mode of action holds significant promise to deliver a wide range of therapies into the brain in therapeutically relevant doses. As the team works to advance the xB3-001 program into development, we are strongly encouraged by the proof-of-concept data showing significant brain exposure, 68 percent reduction in tumor number and compelling target engagement in a human HER2+ breast cancer brain metastasis model.”