Durata Therapeutics Announces Senior Leadership Team

MORRISTOWN, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Durata Therapeutics today announced the formation of the Company’s senior leadership team with the appointments of Paul R. Edick as Chief Executive Officer, Corey N. Fishman as Chief Operating Officer and Michael Dunne, MD, as Chief Medical Officer. The senior team has substantial healthcare industry experience, including at leading companies, such as Johnson & Johnson, G.D. Searle and Pharmacia (Mr. Edick), Monsanto, Searle and Pharmacia (Mr. Fishman) and Pfizer (Dr. Dunne). The appointment of Mr. Edick was effective July 1st, Mr. Fishman August 15th and Dr. Dunne September 1st.

According to Mr. Edick, “Each member of Durata’s new senior team brings specific strengths and capabilities that will be critical to the organization. Corey has considerable operations and manufacturing background, as well as CFO expertise; Michael has led successful product development and regulatory efforts and has worked with dalbavancin, Durata’s lead clinical asset; and I have had experience with building organizations, and multiple US and global product launches, which will be useful as we plan for further development and the potential commercialization of dalbavancin. I speak on behalf of all of us to say how excited we are to come together and lead Durata at this key moment in its evolution.”

Durata’s advanced-stage development asset, dalbavancin, is a long-acting, injectable, lipoglycopeptide antibiotic that has generated positive Phase 3 results in acute bacterial infections of the skin and skin structures and has demonstrated the potential to offer a unique antibiotic product profile for the specialist physician market. Specifically, dalbavancin has shown it has pharmacokinetic properties that would enable convenient once-a-week dosing, and it offers potent, safe and long-acting activity against Gram-positive bacteria, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

About Durata’s Senior Team

Paul R. Edick has extensive experience bringing new therapeutics to market. Mr. Edick’s most recent position was as Chief Executive Officer of GANIC Pharmaceuticals, a Warburg Pincus investment vehicle. Prior to that, as CEO of MedPointe Healthcare Inc., he led significant growth of the commercial portfolio and development of a pipeline of clinical-stage assets. Mr. Edick also led the negotiated sale of MedPointe in 3Q 2007 to Meda AB, Sweden. Prior to this, he held various senior executive positions at G.D. Searle and its acquirer, Pharmacia Corporation. During his tenure, he headed the Global Pain & Inflammation Business, responsible for the strategy and planning for the launch of Celebrex® and he also led US marketing during the growth phase of Ambien. Previously, he held sales management positions at Ortho Pharmaceuticals and general management positions at Hamilton Communications and Caremark. Mr. Edick is an independent director of several companies, and Chairman of Life Cycle Pharma, a public technology-based biotech in Copenhagen, Denmark. He received his BA degree from Hamilton College.

Corey N. Fishman has over 18 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry leading a variety of functions including operations, finance, business development and strategy. Mr. Fishman has negotiated and closed over $1 billion of transactions in the pharmaceutical industry. His most recent position was as Chief Financial Officer of GANIC Pharmaceuticals, a Warburg Pincus company. Before that, he was CFO of MedPointe Healthcare, where he led finance, manufacturing, supply chain, business development and portfolio optimization. Previously, he served in senior level finance positions in both private and public companies, where he raised over $50 million in the capital markets and executed multiple debt refinancings. He also led Monsanto Company’s global financial planning and analysis organization. Mr. Fishman received his BA degree from the University of Illinois and his Masters in Management from the Krannert School of Management at Purdue University.

Michael Dunne, MD, has over 17 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Most recently, Dr. Dunne was the Vice President and Therapeutic Area Head responsible for the clinical development of compounds in the Anti-Infective Franchise at Pfizer, Inc. In that role he was responsible for the development and successful registration of various anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-viral products, including those for treatment of HIV infection. Included in that portfolio of compounds was dalbavancin, over which he had direct oversight. Dr. Dunne is a member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American Society of Microbiology, as well as the American College of Physicians. He received his BA degree in Economics at Northwestern University, and his MD degree at the State University of New York Health Sciences Center in Brooklyn. He also completed fellowships in infectious diseases and pulmonary medicine at Yale University School of Medicine.

About Durata Therapeutics

Durata Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company addressing the growing need for new antibiotics to treat infectious diseases. Durata’s lead product candidate, dalbavancin, is in late-stage clinical development, and the Company also has two antibiotic programs in earlier-stage, preclinical research. Durata is supported by a premier team of venture capital organizations – New Leaf Venture Partners, LLC, Domain Associates, LLC, Aisling Capital, Sofinnova Ventures Inc. and Canaan Partners.

For more information on Durata and the Company’s programs, please visit http://www.duratatherapeutics.com.