7 February 2018 - - Hackensack, New Jersey- and Petach Tikvah, Israel-based biotechnology company BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: BCLI) has appointed Anthony Polverino, Ph.D., to its board of directors, the company said.
Polverino is a highly accomplished senior biopharmaceutical executive with more than 25 years' industry experience in drug research and development.
Polverino is currently the interim chief scientific officer of Kite (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gilead Sciences), which he joined in 2015, and where he is currently responsible for establishing Kite's strategic non-clinical R and D roadmap to support its current and future portfolio.
Prior to this, he was the vice president of research at Kite, where his responsibilities included corporate goal setting, budget allocation, scientific and investor interactions, business development in-licensing and partnership deals.
Polverino spent 20 years in positions of increasing responsibilities at Amgen, Inc., most recently as executive director of its Therapeutic Innovation Unit, where he managed research programs in oncology, metabolic disease, inflammatory disease and schizophrenia.
Prior to Amgen, he was a postdoctoral scientist at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he worked primarily on oncology research.
He earned a B.Sc. in Biochemistry/Physiology and a B.Sc. (Honors) in Pharmacology, both from Adelaide University in Adelaide, Australia, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Flinders University, also in Adelaide.
BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics is engaged in the development of adult stem cell therapies derived from autologous bone marrow cells for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.
The company holds exclusive, worldwide rights to develop and commercialize its NurOwn technology.
In a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial conducted in the US, a clinically meaningful benefit was demonstrated by higher response to NurOwn compared with placebo. NurOwn has been administered to approximately 70 patients with ALS in clinical trials conducted in the US and Israel.