Kallyope, Pioneers in Drug Discovery via the Gut-Brain Axis, Advances Discovery and Development Teams With New Appointments

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Kallyope, Inc., a leading biotechnology company focused on identifying and developing therapeutics involving the gut-brain axis, today announced the promotion of Shirly Pinto, Ph.D., to Chief Scientific Officer and the appointments of Jiajun Liu, Ph.D., as Vice President and Head of Biometrics and Michael Crutchlow, M.D., as Vice President and Head of Translational Medicine.

“Shirly’s leadership and vision over the last five years have played a vital role building a highly efficient drug discovery organization that today has multiple programs in the clinic,” said Jay Galeota, president and CEO, Kallyope. “As a result, we are entering a new phase of expansion that calls for key new hires. Jiajun and Mike strengthen our clinical development team and, working with Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brett Lauring, will help drive our continued progress. We look forward to engaging their expertise and insight as we move our programs and trials forward.”

Shirly Pinto joined Kallyope in 2017, following 12 years at Merck & Co. where she established and executed scientific strategy in multiple therapeutic areas; she received her bachelor’s degree from New York University, her Ph.D. from Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences/Cold Spring Harbor Labs, and her post-doctoral training from Rockefeller University. At Kallyope, she leads all aspects of drug discovery biology including platform evolution and project inception through lead optimization.

Jiajun Liu has 19 years pharmaceutical experience including 15 years as a biostatistician in late phase clinical development, trial design, and NDA/BLA submissions. Most recently, he was Vice President, Head of Biometrics, at Gemini Therapeutics; previously, he worked at Merck, Eli Lilly & Co., Biogen Inc., and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Liu graduated from North Carolina State University with a Ph.D. in statistics.

Michael Crutchlow joins Kallyope after 15 years at Merck, where he most recently served as Executive Director, Late-Stage Clinical Research - Diabetes, Endocrinology and Metabolism following positions in clinical pharmacology, experimental therapeutics and early clinical biologics development. Dr. Crutchlow received his bachelor’s degree in molecular biology from Colgate University and his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University, and was resident at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He then completed an endocrinology fellowship and was Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

About Kallyope

Kallyope, headquartered at the Alexandria Center® for Life Science in New York City, is a biotechnology company dedicated to unlocking the therapeutic potential of the gut-brain axis. The company’s cross-disciplinary team integrates advanced technologies in sequencing, bioinformatics, neural imaging, cellular and molecular biology, and human genetics to provide an understanding of gut-brain biology that leads to transformational therapeutics to improve human health. The company’s founders are Charles Zuker, Ph.D., Lasker Award winner Tom Maniatis, Ph.D., and Nobel laureate Richard Axel, M.D. For more information, visit www.kallyope.com.