David Weitz Completes Syrrx Senior Management Team as Vice President of Intellectual Property and General Counsel.Business Editors & Health/Medical Writers BIOWIRE2K SAN DIEGO--(BW HealthWire)--May 22, 2002 Syrrx, Inc., a high-throughput rational drug discovery company, announced today the appointment of David Weitz as Vice President of Intellectual Property and General Counsel. Mr. Weitz will manage Syrrx's intellectual property portfolio initiatives and act as its general counsel. He will be responsible for the continued development, maintenance and defense of Syrrx intellectual property as the company moves into preclinical drug development. "Mr. Weitz brings to Syrrx the legal, corporate, and biotechnology experience necessary to successfully manage the company's intellectual property and perform as general counsel," said Wendell Wierenga, Ph.D., 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. of Syrrx. "He will be instrumental in the development and defense of our growing patent portfolio as we continue to advance our drug discovery efforts." Prior to joining Syrrx, Mr. Weitz was a Partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati of Palo Alto Palo Alto, city, California Palo Alto (păl`ō ăl`tō), city (1990 pop. 55,900), Santa Clara co., W Calif.; inc. 1894. Although primarily residential, Palo Alto has aerospace, electronics, and advanced research industries. , CA, where he co-headed the firm's patent prosecution Patent prosecution describes the interaction between an applicant, or their representative, and a patent office with regard to a patent, or an application for a patent. Broadly, patent prosecution can be split into pre-grant prosecution, which involves negotiation with a patent department. At Wilson Sonsini, his practice covered all aspects of intellectual property and focused on companies in the areas of biotechnology, chemistry, material science, medical devices, lasers and optics. Prior to joining Wilson Sonsini in 1996, he held Associate positions with Haynes & Davis of Palo Alto and Limbach & Limbach of San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden , CA. Mr. Weitz received a Juris Doctor The degree awarded to an individual upon the successful completion of law school. Juris doctor, or doctor of Jurisprudence, commonly abbreviated J.D., is the degree commonly conferred by law schools. from the University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley is a public research university located in Berkeley, California, United States. Commonly referred to as UC Berkeley, Berkeley and Cal (Boalt Hall School of Law), a Masters of Science degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a Bachelor of Science Noun 1. Bachelor of Science - a bachelor's degree in science BS, SB bachelor's degree, baccalaureate - an academic degree conferred on someone who has successfully completed undergraduate studies in Chemistry 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, . Mr. Weitz has authored several publications, most recently, "Creating and Maintaining A Business Focused Patent Portfolio." He co-founded BioE2E (www.bioe2e.org), a bioentrepreneur focused special interest group in the Bay Area. He has also held positions as Director, President and Vice President of Entrepreneurship and BioEntrepreneurship for the M.I.T. Club of Northern California Northern California, sometimes referred to as NorCal, is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The region contains the San Francisco Bay Area, the state capital, Sacramento; as well as the substantial natural beauty of the redwood forests, the northern , Advisor to the M.I.T.-Stanford Venture Lab, and Advisor to the Sunnyvale Center for Innovation, Invention and Ideas. "Syrrx has developed an impressive intellectual property portfolio for its high-throughput platform that should lead to the rapid discovery of novel small molecule preclinical drug candidates," said Mr. Weitz. "This is an exciting time to be with the company, and I look forward to contributing to an already successful team of business leaders and innovative scientists." About Syrrx Protein Structures and Drug Discovery The Syrrx "gene to structure" platform uses novel, proprietary tools that bypass historical bottlenecks in the classical protein structure determination process. Deployed in a streamlined, automated environment, the Syrrx platform enables the determination of protein structures more reliably and economically than previously possible. When Syrrx scientists crystallize crys·tal·lize also crys·tal·ize v. crys·tal·lized also crys·tal·ized, crys·tal·liz·ing also crys·tal·iz·ing, crys·tal·liz·es also crys·tal·iz·es v.tr. 1. a protein drug target, they can use the crystal to determine the protein's 3-dimensional 'shape.' Knowing the 'shape' of protein drug targets guides Syrrx scientists as they seek to discover drugs that address unmet medical needs. About Syrrx, Inc. Syrrx, Inc. is a drug discovery company committed to redefining the way medicines are discovered. Based in San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. , CA, the company is at the forefront of high-throughput rational drug discovery. Syrrx intends to leverage high-throughput structure determination, high-throughput screening, combinatorial and medicinal chemistry together with computational methods to discover novel small molecule preclinical drug candidates. This process enables a unique "gene to drug" platform based on the ability to perform high-throughput rational drug discovery. Syrrx has structural proteomic and drug discovery collaborations with industry leaders, including Hoffman La-Roche Ltd., Pharmacia Corporation, Celera Genomics, and Cubist Pharmaceuticals. The company has also acquired small molecule assets from Onyx Pharmaceuticals for use in the internal discovery programs at Syrrx. For more information, please visit the Syrrx website at http://www.syrrx.com. |
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