NEW YORK, April 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Two River Group Holdings, LLC, a biotechnology focused venture capital company, is pleased to announce that Dr. Arie Belldegrun, MD, FACS has joined as Chairman and Partner.
Dr. Belldegrun is Professor and Chief of Urologic Oncology, and holds the Carol and Roy Doumani Chair in Urologic Oncology, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his medical degree at the Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, and conducted his post-doctoral studies at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. He completed his Urologic Surgery residency at Harvard Medical School in 1985 and his Surgical Oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute/National Institute of Health (NIH) in 1988. He is certified by the American Board of Urology and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American Association of Genitourinary Surgeons (AAGUS).
Dr. Belldegrun is also an accomplished entrepreneur. He is the founder and founding chairman of Agensys Inc., a privately held biotechnology company developing fully human antibody cancer therapeutics based on novel and clinically relevant targets. In December 2007 Agensys was acquired by Astellas Pharma, Inc. in a deal valued at $537 million. He is also the Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of Cougar Biotechnology, a publicly traded biotechnology company with a specific focus on the field of oncology, that has a current market capitalization of more than $400 million.
Dr. Belldegrun is on the scientific boards of several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and is a reviewer for many medical journals and granting organizations. He served as Chairman of the Molecular and Biological Technology Committee of the American Urological Association and member of its Technology Assessment Council, as a member of the Governor's council on Bioscience for the State of California, and as a biotechnology group leader and member of The Los Angeles Economy and Jobs Committee established in October 2006 by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. He is the author of several books on prostate and kidney cancers, holds several biopharmaceutical patents, and has written over 400 scientific publications with an emphasis on Urologic Oncology.
Dr. Belldegrun resides in Los Angeles with his wife Dr. Rebecka Belldegrun, President and CEO of Bellco Capital, and their four children.
"I am extremely excited to join Two River as its Chairman and look forward to leading the development and creation of our portfolio companies. With our therapeutic technologies in development, we have the potential to address several major unmet medical needs and a unique opportunity to change patients' lives," said Arie Belldegrun, MD, FACS.
"We are honored to have Dr. Belldegrun join us at Two River," said Peter Kash, co-founder of Two River. "Arie and I have a relationship that goes back many years. It is built on trust and mutual respect, and has culminated in this union. We look forward to the benefit of his strategic vision and guidance as we continue to grow and build our portfolio companies."
About Two River Group Holdings
Two River is biotechnology focused venture capital firm that creates and manages development stage biotechnology companies to develop novel human therapeutic technologies that target a broad range of therapeutic areas, including oncology, cardiovascular disease, ophthalmology and metabolic disorders. Two River's goal is to create a limited number of high quality companies, each having a pipeline of clinical and preclinical compounds that address a common therapeutic area and a management team with relevant industry experience. To achieve this goal, the Two River team conducts rigorous clinical, legal and financial due diligence on hundreds of technologies each year, choosing only a select few to acquire for commercial development. More information on Two River can be found at www.tworiver.com .
SOURCE Two River Group Holdings, LLC
