PARIS, April 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ExonHit Therapeutics S.A. (Alternext: ALEHT), a drug and diagnostic discovery company, announces changes in its Supervisory Board.
Following the annual shareholders' meeting of the Company, that was held on April 25th, 2008, Mr. Edmund Olivier de Vezin's appointment as member of the Supervisory Board, and as vice-chairman of the Board, expired as he has reached the age limit defined in the Company by-laws. The Supervisory Board then appointed Mr. Patrick Langlois, who had just been re-elected during the shareholders'meeting, as vice-chairman of the Board.
ExonHit Therapeutics'shareholders have also elected Mr. Frederic Desdouits, Ph.D. as member of the Supervisory Board.
Mr. Desdouits has been a partner with Bionest Partners, a consultancy firm focused on Life Sciences since 2005. Before joining Bionest, Frederic was head of Pharma Equity Research and a partner at Exane BNP Paribas. He also was head of a research team at GlaxoWellcome, and a Scientific Consultant for Hoechst and Guest Investigator at the Rockefeller University, New York, where he worked on Alzheimer's Disease. Frederic holds a Ph.D. from the College de France in collaboration with Rhone-Poulenc. He holds an MSc in pharmacology and is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique. He is also a member of the ACIIA.
"I am delighted to join the Supervisory Board of ExonHit and look forward to contributing to the analysis of strategic opportunities for the growth of ExonHit, based on my experience as a scientist, finance person and consultant" said Mr. Desdouits.
The Supervisory Board is chaired by Mr. Laurent Condomine, and Mr. Patrick Langlois is vice-chairman. The other Board members are Ms. Deborah Smeltzer, Mr. Christophe Jean, Mr. Michel Picot and Mr. Frederic Desdouits.
"We are very pleased to have Frederic Desdouits sitting on the Supervisory Board of ExonHit Therapeutics. His professional background, his knowledge of shareholder expectations and of the competitive environment of the Life Science industry will be a strategic asset to ExonHit" said Philippe Rousseau, Chairman of the Management Board of ExonHit. "Also, we are very grateful to Mr. Edmund Olivier de Vezin for his valuable advice, his unwavering support and his active participation in ExonHit's development during the ten years he has spent with the Company's Board. Mr. Olivier de Vezin, who represents the Oxford BioSceince Partners funds, invested in ExonHit since its inception and remains ExonHit's first shareholder. We are very happy that Mr Olivier de Vezin continues to support with confidence the Company development through the funds he manages."
About ExonHit Therapeutics
http://www.exonhit.com
ExonHit Therapeutics is the world's leader in the analysis of alternative RNA splicing, a process which when deregulated plays a key role in the onset of various diseases.
ExonHit has a multi-component commercial strategy to capture the maximum value from its leadership in alternative splicing. The Company is already generating revenues from a new generation of microarrays, SpliceArrayTM family of products that enable life science researchers to detect crucial disease-associated information. These products are marketed worldwide in conjunction with Agilent and Affymetrix. In the field of diagnostics, ExonHit has a major collaboration with bioMerieux to develop completely novel predictive blood-based cancer diagnostics, which could play a key role in improving the treatment of breast cancer and other major cancers and develops its own projects for the detection of other chronic diseases such as Alzheimer' disease or atherosclerosis.
In parallel, ExonHit is developing its own therapeutic pipeline in the field of neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. The Company has advanced drug candidates into clinical trials and is evaluating several promising pre-clinical compounds. ExonHit also has a strategic partnership with Allergan, to discover and develop new therapeutics in the areas of pain, neurological diseases and ophthalmology. This collaboration provides on-going research funding to ExonHit.
Founded in 1997, ExonHit is headquartered in Paris, France and has a U.S. facility in Gaithersburg, Maryland. The Company is listed on Alternext of Euronext Paris (ticker: ALEHT; ISIN: FR0004054427) since November 17, 2005.
This press release may be drafted in the French and English languages. In an event of differences between the texts, the French language version shall prevail.
SOURCE ExonHit Therapeutics SA
