Biovail Announces Establishment of External Advisory Board.TORONTO -- Biovail Corporation (NYSE/TSX: BVF) today announced the formation of an External Advisory Board (EAB) to oversee and provide medical, scientific, and commercial input into the Company's development-pipeline efforts in specialty central nervous system disorders Nervous system disorders A satisfactory classification of diseases of the nervous system should include not only the type of reaction (congenital malformation, infection, trauma, neoplasm, vascular diseases, and degenerative, metabolic, toxic, or deficiency . Biovail's EAB is comprised of Franklin M. Berger, Dr. Mark A. Cochran, Dr. Kathleen Clarence-Smith, Dr. Robert H. Lenox, Dr. Karoly Nikolich and Dr. Ian Ragan - exceptional individuals that bring a wealth of academic, business and product-development expertise and acumen to Biovail. "We are delighted to welcome these renowned individuals to Biovail's External Advisory Board", said Biovail's Chief Scientific Officer and Chair of the EAB, Dr. H. Christian Fibiger. "Having this outstanding pool of talent and expertise upon which to draw bodes well for our goal of becoming the premiere specialty pharmaceutical company in niche neurological disorders." Franklin M. Berger Mr. Berger provides consulting services to the biotechnology industry, including biopharmaceutical firms, asset managers and venture capital companies. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of several biotechnology companies, including Seattle Genetics, Inc. and ViroChem Pharma, Inc. Mr. Berger began his career in 1985 in the investment industry, working at Pantagruel Partners, a seed venture capital company in New York, focusing exclusively on biotechnology investments. From there, he transitioned into equity research, where he served as a sell-side analyst for a number of notable firms, including Salomon Smith Barney and JPMorgan Securities, Inc. During his five years at JPMorgan, Mr. Berger was involved in the issuance of over $12 billion in biotechnology company equity or equity-linked securities. Mr. Berger received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University, mainly at Baltimore, Md. Johns Hopkins in 1867 had a group of his associates incorporated as the trustees of a university and a hospital, endowing each with $3.5 million. Daniel C. ; and his MBA degree from Harvard University. In 2000, he became a Founding Fellow of the Biotechnology Study Center at New York University New York University, mainly in New York City; coeducational; chartered 1831, opened 1832 as the Univ. of the City of New York, renamed 1896. It comprises 13 schools and colleges, maintaining 4 main centers (including the Medical Center) in the city, as well as the School of Medicine. Dr. Mark A. Cochran Mark A. Cochran, Ph.D. has an extensive background in life sciences that includes roles in basic and applied research, drug development, business development and venture capital. Dr. Cochran is the acting-CEO of the newly formed division of Microbix Biosystems that holds the commercial rights to the protein drug Urokinase urokinase /uro·ki·nase/ (UK) (u?ro-ki´nas) u-plasminogen activator; an enzyme in the urine of humans and other mammals, elaborated by the parenchymal cells of the human kidney and acting as a plasminogen activator. . Until May 2008, Dr. Cochran was the CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. and executive director of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute (BRNI). Prior to BRNI, he was managing director of the NeuroVentures Fund, a venture capital group that invests in companies developing drugs, devices and other medical technologies for clinical neuroscience. Prior to NeuroVentures, Dr. Cochran worked with MDS MDS, n See temporomandibular pain-dysfunction syndrome. MDS 1 Maternal deprivation syndrome, see there 2 Myelodysplastic syndrome, see there Capital Corp., a Toronto-based Healthcare venture capital group. Dr. Cochran's experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry includes serving at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, most recently as Vice-President of Business Development, Biotechnology, in Berkeley, California. Before joining Bayer, Dr. Cochran co-founded MicroGeneSys, Inc., a Connecticut-based vaccine company where he was a co-inventor and co-developer of candidate vaccines for HIV HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), either of two closely related retroviruses that invade T-helper lymphocytes and are responsible for AIDS. There are two types of HIV: HIV-1 and HIV-2. HIV-1 is responsible for the vast majority of AIDS in the United States. , HBV HBV hepatitis B virus. HBV abbr. hepatitis B virus , malaria, influenza and others. Dr. Cochran holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, and a Master's degree in microbiology from the University of Guelph The University of Guelph is a medium-sized university located in Guelph, Ontario, established in 1964. While the U of G offers degrees in many different disciplines, the university is best known for its focus on life sciences, based in part on a long-standing history of . He has also completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and is listed as the author on 22 scientific papers, 70 abstracts and six patents. Dr. Kathleen Clarence-Smith Dr. Kathleen Clarence-Smith M.D., Ph.D. is an internationally recognized neurologist whose career has been dedicated to developing and commercializing novel pharmaceuticals. She has over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, including senior positions at sanofi-aventis, Roche, and Otsuka. More recently, she has founded, raised money and headed start-up pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Clarence-Smith co-founded KM Pharmaceuticals Consulting Group, a company that manages pharmaceutical projects from the Investigational New Drug (IND) stage to the end of Phase II clinical development in the US. Prior to KM, she co-founded Prestwick Pharmaceuticals, a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company that Biovail acquired in September 2008. Prior to Prestwick, Dr. Clarence-Smith co-founded Prestwick Chemical, a successful medicinal chemistry company, based in Strasbourg, France, that sells chemical libraries and performs medicinal chemistry on a fee-for-service basis. Dr. Clarence-Smith received her M.D. and Ph.D. in Neurosciences at the University of Tours The University of Tours, also known as the Université François Rabelais, is a public university in Tours, France. The university is named after the French writer François Rabelais, and was founded in 1969. , France, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, is a highly regarded medical school and biomedical research institute in the United States. in the Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. She is a co-founder, Board member, and past President of the American Society of Experimental NeuroTherapeutics (ASENT ASENT Advanced Specialty Engineering Networked Toolkit ASENT Automatic System Excess Noise Temperature ) and is a member of several other scientific societies. She is the author of more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and of more than 20 patents. Dr. Robert H. Lenox Dr. Lenox is President of RHL Consulting, LLC, which provides consulting services in CNS See Continuous net settlement. CNS See continuous net settlement (CNS). drug-discovery and development. Dr. Lenox serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) for a number of biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and venture capital companies. Until recently, he served as Vice-President and Worldwide Head of CNS Drug Discovery for sanofi-aventis. Prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry in 2001, Dr. Lenox held an endowed, tenured faculty position as Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology and Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine The University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine, presently located in the University City section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the United States's first school of medicine, founded at the College of Philadelphia, as the University was then called. . Dr. Lenox has had a distinguished academic, clinical and research career for over 25 years as a psychiatrist and neuroscientist with continuous NIH-grant funding. Dr. Lenox has authored or co-authored over 150 peer-reviewed publications in molecular neuropharmacology neuropharmacology /neu·ro·phar·ma·col·o·gy/ (-fahr?mah-kol´ah-je) the scientific study of the effects of drugs on the nervous system. neu·ro·phar·ma·col·o·gy n. and clinical psychopharmacology psychopharmacology (sī'kōfär'məkŏl`əjē), in its broadest sense, the study of all pharmacological agents that affect mental and emotional functions. . Dr. Lenox is a Life Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential world-wide. Its some 148,000 members are mainly American but some are international. . He holds a B.Sc. in Biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at Cambridge; coeducational; chartered 1861, opened 1865 in Boston, moved 1916. It has long been recognized as an outstanding technological institute and its Sloan School of Management has notable programs in business, (MIT MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology ), and a medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine. Dr. Karoly Nikolich Dr. Karoly Nikolich is the CEO of Amnestix, Inc. - a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for central nervous system disorders. Dr. Nikolich also serves on the Board of Directors or SAB of several other biotechnology companies, and is the U.S. advisor of Dievini - a German investment fund. Dr. Nikolich started his career in the biotechnology industry twenty-five years ago as a scientist at Genentech, where he initiated and developed the company's first neuroscience research program. Later, he co-founded several biotech companies, including AGY Therapeutics in 1998. From 2005 to 2007, he was Executive Director of the Neuroscience Institute at Stanford University. Dr. Nikolich is Consulting Professor at Stanford University Medical School and was formerly Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission . He has co-authored 125 publications and is the inventor of over 20 patents. A graduate of Eotvos University in Budapest, Hungary, Dr. Nikolich has conducted post-doctoral studies at Tulane University in New Orleans and at the University of California, San Francisco . Dr. Ian Ragan Dr. Ian Ragan is Director of CIR Consultancy Ltd., providing consultancy services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He is also the Executive Director of the European Brain Council, and an advisor to the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations' (EFPIA EFPIA European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations ) Innovative Medicines Initiative. In addition, he chairs the SAB of Capsant Neurotechnologies, and is a member of the SAB of Evotec AG. He also chairs the Biologicals Expert Working Group of the National Centre for Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals (NC3Rs), exploring the use of non-human primates in the development of monoclonal antibodies. Previously, Dr. Ragan served as Executive Director, Neuroscience Research, Europe and as Executive Director, European Scientific Affairs for Eli Lilly & Co. Following a number of years in academia, Dr. Ragan began his career in the pharmaceutical industry in Merck Sharp and Dohme's Neuroscience Research Centre in 1986, eventually becoming Executive Director of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. Ragan was educated at the Universities of Cambridge and Bristol (Ph.D. Biochemistry) and undertook post-doctoral research in biochemistry at Cornell and the State University of New York (body) State University of New York - (SUNY) The public university system of New York State, USA, with campuses throughout the state. . The formation of the EAB complements Biovail's in-house expertise and resources in specialty CNS disorders. Since announcing its New Strategic Focus in May 2008, Biovail has appointed a number of executives with successful track records in the Company's therapeutic area of focus. These include Dr. Fibiger, appointed to the newly created role of Chief Scientific Officer in November 2008; Dr. Neil M. Sussman, appointed Vice-President, Neurologic & Psychiatric Development in August 2008; and Dr. Robert Butz, appointed Vice-President, Clinical and Medical Affairs in June 2008. About Biovail Corporation Biovail Corporation is a specialty pharmaceutical company engaged in the formulation, clinical testing, registration, manufacture, and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. The Company is focused on the development and commercialization of medicines that address unmet medical needs in niche specialty central nervous system (CNS) markets. For more information about Biovail, visit the Company's Web site at www.biovail.com. For further information, please contact Nelson F. Isabel at 905-286-3000 or send inquiries to ir@biovail.com. |
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