Concert Pharmaceuticals’ Roger Tung Awarded 2009 Mass High Tech All Star Award

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Concert Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that Roger Tung, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer, has been named a 2009 Mass High Tech All Star for his contributions to the pharmaceutical industry. The annual All Star awards honor pioneers and leaders across several business and technology sectors in New England. This year’s honorees will be profiled in a special supplement in the November 4 edition of Mass High Tech: The Journal of New England Technology.

“I am honored to be recognized by Mass High Tech with this award”

“Roger has become a true leader in the biotech community and is a very deserving recipient of this award. As a scientist, he has a remarkable track record of discovering and developing novel drugs for diseases such as HIV, Hepatitis C, and cystic fibrosis. While building on that success at Concert, he has also proven to be a terrific entrepreneur, leading a fast growing and exciting new company,” said Richard H. Aldrich, Chairman of the Board of Concert Pharmaceuticals.

“I am honored to be recognized by Mass High Tech with this award,” said Dr. Roger Tung. “This award is a tribute to all of Concert’s employees who are advancing a new branch of chemistry that we believe will enable the rapid discovery and development of clinically and commercially important new medicines.”

Roger Tung has served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Concert Pharmaceuticals, Inc. since he co-founded the company in 2006 based on his independent scientific research. After more than 20 years in drug discovery, Dr. Tung decided to take a different approach to pharmaceutical discovery and development. His vision is to create differentiated, important new medicines while reducing the risk, expense, and long timelines associated with traditional drug development. This vision is embodied by Concert’s technology platform which involves the selective incorporation of deuterium atoms in place of hydrogen in compounds with proven human pharmacological activity in order to improve their metabolism and pharmacokinetics. This process can provide novel drugs that retain the pharmacological activity of the starting compounds but that, in favorable cases, can possess substantially improved safety and/or efficacy features.

A medicinal chemist by training, Dr. Tung was previously at Vertex Pharmaceuticals from 1989, when he joined as a founding scientist, until 2005. At Vertex he co-invented their two commercial HIV protease inhibitors (Lexiva® and Agenerase®). Dr. Tung also oversaw the discovery of clinical candidates for a wide range of therapeutic targets including HIV protease, IMPDH, p38 MAP kinase, HCV protease, HDAC, and CFTR at both protein and transcriptional levels.

Dr. Tung received his Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his B.A. degree in Chemistry from Reed College. He is currently an advisor to the Chinese-American BioMedical Association and a Scientific Advisor for Medivation, Inc.

About Concert

Concert Pharmaceuticals is a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the application of deuterium chemistry to create novel and differentiated small molecule drugs. Concert’s approach leverages known activity and safety of existing drugs to reduce time, risk and expense of drug research and development. The Company has a broad research pipeline encompassing many therapeutic areas including infectious disease and renal disease, among others. Its lead development candidate is the HIV protease inhibitor CTP-518. In 2009, Concert entered into a potential $1 billion collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline to develop and commercialize certain deuterium-containing medicines. Founded in 2006, Concert has raised more than $110 million of venture and institutional capital. For more information on Concert Pharmaceuticals, please visit www.concertpharma.com.

Concert Pharmaceuticals and the CoNCERT logo are trademarks of Concert Pharmaceuticals, Inc.