CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Padlock Therapeutics, a biotechnology company dedicated to creating new medicines for destructive autoimmune diseases, today announced the appointment of Adelene Q. Perkins, chairman and chief executive officer of Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Inc., as the first independent member of the company’s Board of Directors. Ms. Perkins is a highly-regarded biopharmaceutical industry executive with 25 years of international business and corporate strategy experience, focused on licensing and business development, strategic finance, product life cycle management, and building and leading high-caliber, cross-functional teams. Ms Perkins has played an integral role leading Infinity in its transition from a private, platform-based to a publicly-traded, product-based organization. She has been instrumental in developing Infinity’s business strategy, including the establishment of innovative strategic partnerships.
“Padlock’s mission to discover and develop novel treatments for autoimmune diseases requires a team of people who are passionate problem-solvers and who welcome the challenge to leverage exciting but unproven science to provide transformative solutions to patients. Adelene is such a person and we are thrilled to have her join our Board to help us capitalize on the unique opportunity before us,” said Michael Gilman, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Padlock. "Adelene’s skill as a leader, company builder, and strategic thinker will add great value to our board, as we make critical decisions about how to expand the Padlock team and finance the many promising programs in our portfolio.”
“Padlock has assembled a group of the best and brightest leaders in PAD enzyme biology and a deeply experienced management team, enabling them to quickly make tremendous progress validating the potential for PAD inhibitors to serve as robust new treatments for autoimmune disease,” said Adelene Perkins. “It is exactly this pursuit of breakthrough science and the entrepreneurial creativity that strives to bring innovative products to patients that continue to inspire me. I am delighted to join such a distinguished team and look forward to supporting the milestones ahead.”
Adelene Perkins has served as Infinity’s president and chief executive officer since 2009 and was named chairman of the Board of Directors in 2012. She joined Infinity as chief business officer in 2002 and then served as president from 2008-2009. Previously, Ms. Perkins served as vice president of business and corporate development and was an early member of the management team at TransForm Pharmaceuticals prior to its acquisition by J&J. Prior to TransForm, from 1992-1999, she was at Genetics Institute, now a unit of Pfizer, where she was vice president of emerging businesses and the cofounder and general manager of the DiscoverEase™ business unit. She also formed and served as chief executive officer of MetaMorphix, a joint venture between Genetics Institute and Johns Hopkins University directed at discovering and developing members of the TGF-b superfamily. She joined Genetics Institute in corporate and business development where she led corporate and product strategy initiatives. Ms. Perkins began her career working at Bain & Company, an international strategy consulting firm, where she provided strategic and operational advice to clients in the healthcare industry. Ms. Perkins received a M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.S. in chemical engineering from Villanova University. She is on the Boards of BIO (Biotechnology Industry Organization), the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, and the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council; she is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Project Hope.
About PAD Enzymes and Autoimmune Disease
Padlock’s founding hypothesis is that autoimmune disease can result from the aberrant production of neo-antigens, materials not normally expressed during homeostatic health and, as a consequence, recognized as foreign by the immune system. These antigens drive both the initiation and the subsequent development of disease by inducing maturation of the immune response. Once disease is established, antigen production fuels inflammatory cycles in affected organs and drives the formation and deposition of immune complexes, which account for much of the morbidity and mortality in patients with autoimmune disease. Therefore, in patients where the source of neo-antigen is known, extinguishing antigen production offers the potential to impact disease progression and intensity without affecting systemic immunity.
The protein-arginine deiminases (PADs) are a family of enzymes that post-translationally modify arginine side chains on proteins to the non-encoded amino acid citrulline. In some patients, these citrullinated proteins are immunogenic. Therefore, PAD enzymes may be responsible for producing the antigens that drive disease in these individuals. Inhibiting PADs in these patients may provide an innovative and orthogonal approach for treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, and other destructive autoimmune diseases.
About Padlock
Padlock Therapeutics is a private, Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company dedicated to creating new medicines to treat destructive autoimmune diseases. The company leverages breakthrough science on the biochemistry of the protein-arginine deiminase (PAD) enzymes, the role of PADs in generating autoantigens, and the role of protein citrullination in disease to develop novel drugs targeting the PAD enzymes. Padlock was founded by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in conjunction with Atlas Venture. Padlock’s Series A investors include Atlas Venture, Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, Inc., MS Ventures, and Index Ventures. For more information on Padlock, visit www.padlocktherapeutics.com.
