INDIANAPOLIS and ST. LAURENT, Quebec, Aug. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Targanta Therapeutics, a privately held biopharmaceutical company developing antibacterial drugs, announced today the following recent appointments to its management team: Gayle Crick Fischer, R.Ph. as Vice President, Marketing; Roger Miller as Vice President, Operations and Manufacturing; William C. Vladuchick, Ph.D. as Vice President, Strategic Development; and Margaret M. Wasilewski, M.D., Vice President, Clinical Development and Medical Science Team Leader. “Targanta is extremely fortunate to bring together this talented group of individuals, as we continue to advance our lead investigational compound, Oritavancin. This team has deep experience with Oritavancin and the regulatory process, and is committed to commercializing a much-needed potential therapeutic for the treatment of resistant infections,” said Targanta’s President and CEO Pierre Etienne, M.D.
-- Gayle Crick Fischer, R.Ph., Vice President, Marketing, joined Targanta from Eli Lilly and Company. She has 29 years of pharmaceutical industry experience and has built a successful track record in marketing and sales from new product planning through post launch of numerous pharmaceutical products, including blockbuster brands such as Keflex®, Ceclor®, Vancocin®, and Evista®. Ms. Fischer has technical expertise in building and sustaining brands in infectious disease, osteoporosis, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD). Her tenure at Lilly included Global Marketing Manager and Manager of Business Development of the Infectious Disease Business Unit at Lilly. Ms. Fischer obtained her B.S. in pharmacy from the University of Michigan, and her Masters in Management from the University of Michigan at the Rackham School of Graduate Studies.
-- Roger Miller, Vice President, Operations and Manufacturing, has 36 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and joined Targanta from Eli Lilly and Company. Mr. Miller held leadership positions at Lilly in various manufacturing roles, including fermentation, chemical synthesis and bioengineered products at three separate manufacturing sites. Mr. Miller has worked on leading brands such as Vancocin®, Tylosin®, Coban®, Keflex®, Ceclor®, Prozac®, and Humulin®. He later returned to Lilly corporate headquarters and held positions in corporate business development, third party manufacturing, and quality assurance. Mr. Miller earned a B.S. in chemistry from Indiana University. He also holds a M.S. in physical chemistry and an M.B.A., both from Purdue University.
-- William C. Vladuchick, Ph.D., Vice President, Strategic Development, joined Targanta from Eli Lilly and Company after a 26-year career. In his last role, he served as Executive Director, Chemical Process Research and Development, having responsibility for the global chemical process research and development organization. Dr. Vladuchick also previously served as Head, Chemical Process Research, Director, Infectious Diseases Research, and Managing Director, Lilly Research Laboratories in Hamburg, Germany. Dr. Vladuchick graduated from Bucknell University with a B.S. in chemistry, received his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and completed postdoctoral research at Harvard University.
-- Margaret M. Wasilewski, M.D., Vice President, Clinical Development and Medical Science Team Leader, has 10 years of clinical development experience in the pharmaceutical industry including seven years at Eli Lilly and Company, where she worked as clinical team leader for the Oritavancin registration project. Prior to joining Targanta, Dr. Wasilewski, as president of ID Remedies LLC, provided pharmaceutical drug development consulting. She is board certified in Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine, and completed Infectious Diseases and Clinical Pharmacology fellowships at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Wasilewski graduated from Douglass College of Rutgers University with a B.S. in chemistry, received her M.S. in nutrition from the University of California at Berkeley and completed her medical degree at Tufts University School of Medicine.
About Oritavancin Oritavancin, Targanta’s lead product candidate, is a once-daily, semi-synthetic glycopeptide antibiotic with rapid bactericidal activity against all clinically relevant serious Gram-positive infections, including multi-resistant strains. Oritavancin’s multiple targets and mechanisms of action work against the development of resistant strains, which is important when treating serious Gram-positive infections. To date, 1,566 individuals have received Oritavancin in clinical trials, including two large multicenter Phase III studies to demonstrate Oritavancin as an effective and safe therapy for complicated skin and skin structure infections.
About Targanta Therapeutics
Targanta Therapeutics is a privately held biopharmaceutical company developing and commercializing antibacterial drugs to treat serious infections in the hospital setting. Its pipeline includes an array of antibacterial agents in various stages of development. Its lead investigational compound, Oritavancin, used to treat gram-positive bacterial infections, has completed two Phase III clinical trials. The company is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, and maintains research and development operations in St. Laurent, Quebec. The company’s venture capital investors include Seaflower Ventures, VenGrowth Private Equity Partners, Fairway Capital Management, and T2C2/Bio. For more information about the company, please visit, www.targanta.com.
Ceclor®, Coban®, Evista®, Humulin®, Prozac®, Tylosin®, and Vancocin® are registered trademarks of Eli Lilly and Company.
Keflex® is a registered trademark of Advancis Pharmaceutical Corporation
Source: Targanta Therapeutics
