BlackThorn Therapeutics Names George S. Golumbeski, Ph.D., to Board of Directors

“We are excited to have George join BlackThorn’s board, where he will play a vital role in advising the company’s growth and development,” said Mark Corrigan, M.D., BlackThorn chairman of the board. “George is widely recognized within the biopharma industry for his integrity, strategic deal-making and innovative deal structures, as well as his expertise in building companies and in CNS therapeutics.”

Dr. Golumbeski is an independent consultant in the life science and healthcare industries. He is a venture partner at ARCH Venture Partners and currently serves on the boards of Carrick Therapeutics, Enanta Pharmaceuticals, KSQ Therapeutics and MorphoSys. He is also a member of the board of directors of the National Audubon Society.

“I am excited to be joining BlackThorn’s board of directors and look forward to supporting the strategic growth of the company as it moves forward in such a critical therapeutic area,” said Dr. Golumbeski. “BlackThorn has a unique approach to discovering and developing CNS therapeutics. Their approach aims to create an understanding of the specific underlying pathophysiology of neurobehavioral disorders, thereby allowing identification of patients most likely to respond to a given therapy. Impressively, BlackThorn is currently testing this construct in clinical trials.”

During Dr. Golumbeski’s 25-year career leading business development organizations, he has focused on enabling young, innovation-driven companies to bring breakthrough medications into medical practice and has contributed to the advance of numerous marketed medications that are benefiting patients worldwide. While at Celgene, a period when the company became “Partner of Choice,” he was responsible for identifying and evaluating opportunities, structuring and negotiating transactions, in-licensing, M&A, outlicensing and alliance management within the therapeutic areas of oncology and inflammation. He was a major force behind Celgene’s well-regarded effort to build its drug development pipeline through external alliances, and he was an innovator in positioning new models for inter-company collaboration. In 2014, he was recognized by FierceBiotech as one of the 20 most influential people in the biotechnology industry. Prior to Celgene, he served as chief executive officer of Nabriva Therapeutics AG. Before that, he was vice president of business development, licensing and strategy at Novartis Oncology. Prior to that, he held leadership positions at Elan Pharmaceuticals and Schwarz Pharma, where he was wholly focused on neurology and neuropsychiatry therapeutics. Dr. Golumbeski received a B.A. in biology from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He conducted postdoctoral research in molecular biology at the University of Colorado Boulder.

About BlackThorn Therapeutics, Inc.

BlackThorn Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to transforming the lives of people with neurobehavioral disorders. BlackThorn has created a robust pipeline of first-in-class and potentially best-in-class treatments. The company uses novel technologies and insights from data science to uniquely understand the connection between brain and behaviors to enable targeted drug discovery and development. BlackThorn Therapeutics is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. For more information, please visit http://www.blackthornrx.com/.

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