May 23 2007
NanoMed Pharmaceuticals has announced today that it has elected to its Board of Directors, Gabriel Leung, President, Oncology, at OSI Pharmaceuticals, a leading biotechnology company and maker of Tarceva.
"We are extremely pleased to have attracted an executive of Gabe's caliber to the Board," said Stephen Benoit, NanoMed's President and CEO, and Patrick G. Morand, NanoMed's Chairman and Managing Director, SWMF Life Science Fund, the company's lead investor. "There is no question that he will play a critical role in helping us to build our drug pipeline," Benoit added. NanoMed's lead product is a nanoparticle formulation of an FDA-approved cancer drug used to treat adults diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. This lead product is expected to enter human clinical trials in 2008.
Before joining OSI, Mr. Leung was Group Vice President, Global Prescription Business at Pharmacia, where he served on the CEO's Operating Committee and headed up the company's Oncology Franchise with business and medical affairs operations in over 80 countries. Mr. Leung also oversaw all the oncology research and development projects and portfolio strategies as the co-chair of Pharmacia's Oncology Development Committee. During his 4-year tenure at Pharmacia, which ended with the acquisition by Pfizer, Mr. Leung doubled the size of the oncology business to $1.3 billion in revenues, building it into one of the then largest oncology therapeutic companies in the world. He orchestrated two new product launches and helped build one of the strongest oncology pipelines in the industry through acquisition and in- licensing. Mr. Leung began his career in the pharmaceutical industry at Eastman Pharmaceuticals/Sterling Drug Inc., and then had a distinguished career at Bristol-Myers Squibb working on blockbuster products including Pravachol, Taxol, and Paraplatin.
"NanoMed is an exciting emerging specialty pharmaceutical company with a promising nanoparticulate formulation technology that can be leveraged to develop a broad pipeline of pharmaceutical products for use in oncology and many other therapeutic areas," said Mr. Leung. "I am pleased to have the opportunity to help them grow as a member of the company's Board."
Mr. Leung is a pharmacist, trained at the University of Texas at Austin where he earned his pharmacy degree with High Honors. Following some years of practice in the hospital environment, Mr. Leung earned his M.S. degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with concentration in pharmaceutical marketing. Mr. Leung is a member of the National Cancer Institute Clinical Trial Advisory Committee and is the founding chairman of the Life Sciences Consortium, an initiative of the CEO Roundtable on Cancer. He is also an active member and a member of the Nominating Committee of C-Change, a national initiative chaired by former President George Bush and Mrs. Barbara Bush with the goal of eliminating cancer as a major public health problem at the earliest possible time.
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