X-Ceptor Therapeutics, Inc.

Vividion Therapeutics Appoints Diego Miralles, M.D., Chief Executive Officer - Richard Heyman joins Board of Directors - SAN DIEGO, Sept. 7, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Vividion Therapeutics, a newly established biotechnology company using revolutionary proteomics and chemistry platforms to discover and develop novel small molecule therapeutics, today announced the appointments of Diego Miralles, M.D., as Chief Executive Officer and Richard Heyman, Ph.D. as member of the Board of Directors. Dr. Miralles brings extensive scientific leadership and drug development experience to Vividion spanning two decades and includes leading biotech and pharmaceutical companies. "We are delighted to have Diego join our company. Throughout his career he has demonstrated a longstanding commitment to improving patient care, and he brings the strong business and scientific leadership we need to maximize the enormous potential of our platforms," said Tom Daniel, Chairman of the Board of Directors. "We believe we can transform the way in which small molecules are discovered and can address targets that until now have remained undruggable." "I'm excited about the potential for Vividion to revolutionize drug discovery and address many unmet medical needs. Patients are waiting," said Dr. Miralles. Dr. Miralles most recently served as President of Adaptive Therapeutics, a new division of Adaptive Biotechnologies launched in 2016. Prior to that, Dr. Miralles served as the Global Head for Johnson & Johnson Innovation. During his career at Johnson & Johnson, he founded the Johnson & Johnson Innovation Centers and JLABS, a best-in-class corporate incubator for entrepreneurs in the healthcare and life sciences industries. Dr. Miralles also headed an entrepreneurial team within the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson that created integrated care businesses and enabling technologies to transform the healthcare experience, improve outcomes and reduce healthcare costs. He headed the Janssen Research and Early Development unit in La Jolla, California focused in pharmaceutical discoveries and early proof of concept clinical development. Dr. Miralles joined Johnson & Johnson as VP of Clinical Development at Tibotec in Belgium, where he was involved in the development and approval of several drugs including PREZISTA® and INTELENCE®. Prior to Johnson & Johnson, Dr. Miralles held research and development positions at Trimeris and Triangle Pharmaceuticals and was an Assistant Professor at Duke University Medical Center, serving as a scientist and an Infectious Disease physician. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of California San Diego. Dr. Miralles received his M.D. from the Universidad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, completed his internal medicine residency at the Mayo Clinic, and was a fellow in Infectious Diseases at Cornell University-New York Hospital. Dr. Heyman is former CEO of Seragon Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by the Roche, and Aragon Pharmaceuticals, which was purchased by Johnson & Johnson. He was a cofounder and Chief Scientific Officer of X-Ceptor Therapeutics, which was acquired by Exelixis. He has served as Vice President of Research at Ligand Pharmaceuticals. He is the author or inventor on more than 120 publications and patents. Dr. Heyman currently serves on the Board of Directors for ORIC Pharmaceuticals, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, UCSD Moores Cancer Center, Gritstone Oncology and Metacrine Inc. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute, working with Dr. Ronald Evans. Dr. Heyman received a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Minnesota. About Vividion Therapeutics Vividion Therapeutics, Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on developing innovative therapeutics that treat major unmet clinical needs using the first platform for proteome-wide ligand and target discovery. The company's cutting-edge platform was spun out of the labs of Vividion's scientific founders, a team of experts in chemical biology and synthetic chemistry from The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA. Vividion is committed to advancing and applying its pioneering synthetic and proteomic chemistry platforms to create therapeutics that will make a transformative difference in patients. For more information, please visit . Julie Rathbun Rathbun Communications  Julie@rathbuncomm.com  206-769-9219View original content with multimedia: SOURCE Vividion Therapeutics

August 5, 2015 By Alex Keown , BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff SAN DIEGO – A biotech startup mystery has been solved. Ronald Evans ’ startup Metacrine, Inc. , which has been in stealth mode since this spring, will develop therapies, to target diabetes, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and other metabolic diseases and liver disorders, the company announced this morning. The announcement came after the California-based Metacrine, Inc. announced it raised an additional $36 million in Series A financing as well as naming a new leadership team, including the appointment of Neil McDonnell , formerly of Takeda Pharmaceuticals , as its new chief executive officer. In a statement McDonnell said Metacrine is dedicated to advancing Evans’ research in nuclear hormone receptors. Metacrine said it will be advancing endocrine research through technology licensed from Evans’ laboratory at the Salk Institute . While at Takeda , McDonnell had a history of successfully guiding diabetes drugs to market, including Nesina, Oseni, and Kazano. He also successfully navigated regulatory approval for the obesity drug Contrave, which was developed by Takeda and Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc. . McDonnell told Fierce Biotech that Metacrine was armed with an insulin sensitizer and a NASH therapy acquired from the Salk Institute . Beyond that, the company isn’t saying too much about its planned therapies as it plans to navigate the tough waters of diabetes research. In April , after announcing it had raised $6.5 million in Form D financing, the company said it had a goal of raising $33 million. At the time Metacrine did not disclose its end goal, likely in an attempt to prevent competitors from gaining an advantage in the market. There was speculation that Metacrine would focus on hormonal cancer treatments, a subject the company’s independent director Evans , a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory at the Salk Institute , is quite familiar with. Evans’ research at the Salk Institute is credited with discovering a family of molecules, or receptors, that are primary targets in the treatment of breast cancer, prostate cancer and leukemia, as well as osteoporosis and asthma. Evans’ studies also led to a new hormone that appears to be the molecular trigger controlling the formation of fat cells, according to the Salk Institute website. The latest round of financing was led by Arch Venture Partners , EcoR1 Capital , Polaris Partners and venBio , the company said in a statement. McDonnell said the funding should be sufficient to complete pre-clinical work on two programs with mechanistically distinct endocrine pathway and begin to see efficacy data, XConomy reported . Other newly appointed members of the Metacrine leadership team include Trisha Millican , chief financial officer; Nicholas Smith , senior vice president of chemistry and Eric Bischoff , the vice president of business operations. All three previously served in senior management roles at Seragon Pharmaceuticals , acquired by Genentech / Roche , and Roche , and Aragon Pharmaceuticals , acquired by Johnson & Johnson . The company currently has 12 employees, including its executive committee. In April, Meghana Keshavan of MedCity News , speculated part of Metacrine ’s goal is to reassemble some of the top talent from Aragon Pharmaceuticals and its sister company Seragon Pharmaceuticals – primarily due to the relationship between Evans and Rich Heyman , a Salk board member who also founded X-Ceptor Therapeutics alongside Evans. Heyman was the chief executive officer at Seragon and also served as president and CEO at Aragon . Until Seragon shuttered its offices earlier his year, Heyman had been overseeing the shut down of Seragon following its acquisition by Roche last year. Heyman is serving as the chairman of Metacrine ’s board of directors. “There is great potential in the advancement of therapeutics arising from research on endocrine signaling pathways that govern metabolic homeostasis, and Metacrine is poised to make an impact in advancing some novel therapies in this area,” Heyman said in a statement.