Chimerix

News Releases

Chimerix, Inc. Announces Appointment of Expert

   

- Company Currently Developing an Oral Drug for Smallpox Infections

SAN DIEGO, CA, October 9, 2002 - Chimerix, Inc., an emerging biotechnology company developing orally available, targeted medicines from bioactive molecules, today announced the appointment of George Painter, Ph.D. as company President and CEO. Dr. Painter has twenty-four years of experience in the discovery and development of pharmaceutical agents, and most recently held the position of Executive Vice President, Research and Development, at Triangle Pharmaceuticals where he was a member of the founding management team.

"Chimerix has the potential to address unmet medical needs in multiple therapeutic areas using our proprietary technology platform," said Dr. Painter. "Modifying bioactive molecules using Chimerix chemistry can improve oral bioavailability, enhance potency and facilitate distribution of drugs to target organs. I look forward to working with the Company to apply this chemistry to modify existing agents and to develop new drug candidates from classes of molecules not amenable to development in the past."

With initial funding from Sanderling Ventures and Asset Management, Chimerix began operations in Q3 2002 to commercialize proprietary chemistry that was developed in the laboratory of Dr. Karl Hostetler at the University of California San Diego and the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Diego, CA. The Company is focusing its initial efforts in infectious diseases and is pursuing orally available drugs for the treatment of Smallpox Virus and multi-drug resistant Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). The candidate to treat smallpox infection is currently in pre-clinical development and the Company is pursuing government financing to move the drug into clinical trials.

The fact that Smallpox Virus is recognized as one of the most dangerous biological weapons in the world was reaffirmed recently when The Centers for Disease Control issued a blueprint for vaccinating the entire U.S. population in the event of an outbreak. "Currently no effective oral drug therapy for smallpox exists, and existing vaccines have inherent dangers and would not be safe for use in immunosuppressed persons," said Dr. Karl Hostetler, scientific founder and inventor of Chimerix technology. "Chimerix is developing an oral antiviral medication that has the potential to prevent infection in exposed individuals or to treat already infected individuals by administering pills. Tests have shown that the Chimerix compound is not only orally available, but is at least 100 times more effective in cellular assays than a compound lacking Chimerix chemistry because it is more readily absorbed into cells."

In addition to the smallpox compound, Chimerix is pursuing pre-clinical development of a treatment for multi-drug resistant HIV infection. The candidate compound is orally available and a potent inhibitor of nearly all HIV-1 strains including those with multiple drug resistance mutations. The Company is also advancing pre-clinical lead compounds for treatment of osteoporosis and viral hepatitis.

About George Painter, Ph.D.

In addition to his management experience at Triangle Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Painter held positions at Burroughs Wellcome Co. beginning in 1983 including Director of Chemistry and Director of Virology. Subsequently, he served as Director of Research Process and International Deputy Therapeutic Head for Antiviral Research at Glaxo Wellcome Inc. Dr. Painter is a co-inventor of over forty-five patents, six of which have led to approved commercially available drugs or combinations of drugs for the treatment of HIV and hepatitis B. He has led international teams which generated data for nine investigational new drug applications and three new drug applications. Dr. Painter earned a B.S. in chemistry, an M.S. in physical organic chemistry and a Ph.D. in synthetic chemistry from Emory University.

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