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Morphotek Inc. announced today the appointment of Martin D. Phillips, M.D., as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development. Dr. Phillips has been responsible for the clinical development of several biological products, both in the U.S. and internationally in his previous academic and corporate positions. He will be responsible for managing and expanding Morphotek's clinical antibody portfolio as the company prepares to launch its first lead product into clinical development for the treatment of ovarian cancer.
"We are delighted to welcome Dr. Phillips to Morphotek," said Nicholas C. Nicolaides, President and Chief Executive Officer of Morphotek. "He is a dynamic executive with extensive experience in developing and successfully executing clinical programs to aggressively advance drug development. We are pleased to bring his broad clinical development knowledge and leadership to Morphotek as we build and expand our therapeutic antibody portfolio. Dr. Phillips most recently held the position of Vice President at ZLB Behring (formerly Aventis Behring) where he was in charge of overseeing clinical trials in North America in all therapeutic areas. He is Board Certified in Internal Medicine and Hematology, and licensed to practice in both Texas as well as Pennsylvania. "I am excited to join Morphotek as the company begins to advance its therapeutic antibodies for cancer, inflammation and infectious disease into clinical development," commented Dr. Phillips. "Morphotek's first two clinical therapeutic candidates target ovarian and pancreatic cancer, which are areas of very high clinical need. We are looking to greatly improve the lives of these patients.
Dr. Phillips arrives at an opportune time to lead Morphotek's clinical group and advance the first of three cancer antibodies into the clinic. The first monoclonal, MORAb-003, will be developed for one of most deadly forms of cancer, chemo-refractory ovarian cancer. We are very fortunate to have someone with Dr. Phillip's scientific and clinical experiences joining our organization to lead our clinical programs." stated Dr. Philip M. Sass, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.
Phillips earned his Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan and received his Medical Degree from Wayne State University. Dr. Phillips held appointments as Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, where he performed grant-funded basic research in addition to clinical practice. He has published over 30 papers and book chapters, including several on clinical trials of experimental drugs, holds two patents on biologically-related therapeutics and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of leading peer reviewed journals.
Morphotek is a biotechnology company focused on the generation of proprietary organisms for product discovery and development. Morphotek has a validated and patented platform technology called morphogenics that rapidly enhances the natural process of genetic evolution within a targeted host to yield variants with novel, commercially important output traits. This versatile technology has been successfully applied to microbes, plants, and mammals to yield genetically diverse offspring that are suitable for pharmaceutical and agricultural product development in the areas of antibody and protein therapeutics, high-titer protein manufacturing, and drug target discovery. Internally, Morphotek employs its morphogenics technology to develop optimized therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammatory and infectious diseases. For further company information visit: http://www.morphotek.com
For Information Contact:
Dr. Philip M. SassExecutive Vice President and Chief Operating OfficerMorphotek, Inc.
Telephone: (610) 423-6106