CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- SAGE Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SAGE), a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing novel therapies with the potential to transform the lives of people with debilitating brain disorders, today announced that, as part of the Company’s plan to accelerate growth and leverage the talents of the leaders in the brain health space, Barry Greene has been appointed chief executive officer. Mr. Greene, who most recently served as president of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., from 2007 to September 2020, and as its chief operating officer from 2003 to 2016, will also continue as a member of Sage’s board of directors.

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Barry Greene (Photo: Business Wire)

“Sage is taking on one of the biggest challenges we face today with the urgent and escalating need for more options to transform the lives of millions of patients with debilitating brain health disorders,” said Barry Greene, chief executive officer at Sage. “I am impressed by the groundbreaking and relentless pursuit that Jeff has spearheaded, and one that the entire organization has embraced, to bring a new way of thinking about how we can treat brain health disorders differently. Together, Jeff with his unique neuroscience expertise, and I, along with the talented team at Sage, can leverage our collective strengths in our efforts to bring new options to patients in areas that have been lacking innovation for a very long time. I look forward to being part of such a passionate and committed team as we advance Sage’s multi-franchise strategy and work to deliver on our mission to bring positive impact to the lives of many patients and their families.”

Dr. Jonas will continue to advance the Company’s mission in the new role of chief innovation officer. In this capacity, he will bring his thought leadership and the creative, innovative thinking for which Sage is known. He will remain a member of the board and will chair Sage’s Science & Technology Forum of the Board. As chief innovation officer, Jeff will focus on his well-recognized expertise — neuroscience, development, and pipeline expansion — bringing to bear in the role his creative thinking and extensive drug development experience.

“I am optimistic about what we have done to advance breakthrough science with the goal of delivering truly different approaches to treat brain health disorders. We always had the vision of upending the conventional wisdom of how to think about and how to treat these disorders,” said Jeff Jonas, M.D. chief innovation officer and formerly chief executive officer at Sage. “I am proud of the progress we have made on this journey — we took the company from a research organization to a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company with the first approved product for postpartum depression and one of the strongest brain health pipelines in the industry. Our ability to attract Barry’s caliber of talent as our next CEO is a testament to these efforts and he’s committed to continuing to make progress on our journey to provide groundbreaking options for people with brain health disorders. I look forward to working with Barry and the Sage team moving forward and continuing to contribute to Sage’s advancement in my new role.”

“I’ve known and worked with Barry for 20 years,” said Kevin Starr, chairman of the board at Sage. “His appointment as CEO is the result of thoughtful succession discussions with the Board, with the aim of augmenting the executive bench with a world-class leader committed to moving Sage to the next stage of growth and commercialization. Barry is ideal to lead this mission: he has a significant track record of successfully executing on R&D and commercialization strategies. He has built and grown a multiproduct company and is very familiar with Sage’s business and culture. Having Barry as CEO and Jeff as CInO strengthens Sage for its next evolution.”

About Barry Greene:
Barry E. Greene joined the Sage Board of Directors in October 2020 bringing more than 30 years of experience to this position. Prior to Sage, he served as president of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., since 2007 and he previously held the position of chief operating officer when he first joined the company in 2003. Prior to his 17 year tenure at Alnylam, Mr. Greene was the general manager of Oncology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he led the Company’s global strategy and execution for its oncology business, including strategic business direction and execution, culminating in the successful U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval and launch of VELCADE^® (bortezomib) in mid-2003. Prior to joining Millennium in 2001, Mr. Greene served as executive vice president and chief business officer for Mediconsult.com, a healthcare consulting company. Earlier in Mr. Greene’s career, he held multiple leadership positions at AstraZeneca (formerly AstraMerck), and was a partner of Andersen Consulting, where he was responsible for the pharmaceutical/biotechnology marketing and sales practice.

He received his B.S. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and served as a Senior Scholar at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

About Sage Therapeutics
Sage Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing novel therapies with the potential to transform the lives of people with debilitating disorders of the brain. We are pursuing new pathways with the goal of improving brain health and our depression, neurology and neuropsychiatry franchise programs aim to change how brain disorders are thought about and treated. Our mission is to make medicines that matter so people can get better, sooner. For more information, please visit www.sagerx.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
Various statements in this release concern Sage’s future expectations, plans and prospects, including without limitation: our views and expectations regarding the goals, opportunity, plans, mission and potential for our products, programs and business. These statements constitute forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees of future performance, and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in these forward-looking statements, including the risks that: success in our earlier clinical trials or non-clinical studies may not be repeated or observed in ongoing or future studies, and ongoing and future clinical and non-clinical results may not meet their primary or key secondary endpoints or be sufficient to file for or gain regulatory approval to market a product without further development work or may not support further development at all; we may encounter adverse results or adverse events at any stage of development that negatively impact further development or that require additional nonclinical and clinical work which may not yield positive results; the FDA may ultimately decide that the design or results of our completed, ongoing and planned clinical trials for any of our product candidates, even if positive, are not sufficient for regulatory approval in the indications that are the focus of our development plan; other decisions or actions of the FDA or other regulatory agencies may affect the initiation, timing, design, size, progress and cost of clinical trials and our ability to proceed with further development; we may encounter technical and other unexpected hurdles in the development and manufacture of our product candidates which may delay our timing or change our plans or increase our costs; as well as those risks more fully discussed in the section entitled “Risk Factors” in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in our subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition, any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. We explicitly disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements.

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