10 September 2018 - - US-based GeneCentric Therapeutics, Inc. has appointed Michael V. Milburn, PhD, as chief scientific officer.

Milburn, who joins GeneCentric from Metabolon, Inc. where he was CSO, has more than 25 years of R and D leadership experience in biotechnology companies and in a major pharmaceutical company.

In his role as CSO of GeneCentric, Milburn will lead the company's efforts to advance and expand its portfolio of Cancer Profilers to identify drug responders based on its proprietary Cancer Subtyping Platform.

He will also play an integral role in overseeing and building our collaborations with pharmaceutical and academic partners.

The company currently has Cancer Profilers for lung and head and neck cancer, bladder and pancreatic cancer, as well as a growing pipeline of Profilers in other cancers including multiple myeloma.

Previously, Milburn joined Metabolon in 2005 as one of the first scientists recruited into the company and led the development of its core metabolomic technology and the growth of its R and D organization.

In addition to overseeing R and D, he played an integral role in establishing high value scientific and commercial partnerships.

Prior to Metabolon, he served as senior vice president of Research and Corporate Development at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and senior vice president of Research at Plexxikon.

He also held senior research positions at Structural Genomix (VP of Structural Biology); and GlaxoWellcome (Department Head of Structural Chemistry).

GeneCentric Therapeutics is applying proprietary technology to identify drug responder populations that enable the development of precision cancer drugs while improving patient outcomes.

The company's initial approach applies its Cancer Subtype Platform to parse the complexity of tumor biology and generate genomic signatures.

This approach yields high-resolution cancer subtypes with the potential to function as universal biomarkers for susceptibility to immune-based, targeted and other therapies., the company said.

In commercialiSing its technology through strategic collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, GeneCentric are defining responder populations based on subtypes throughout the drug development cycle.