Beijing, SHANGHAI, China, April 25, 2019—CANbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc., a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative drug candidates to treat underserved medical conditions in China and other markets, announced that it has appointed Glenn Hassan to the position of Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer, and Gerald F. Cox, MD, PhD, in an advisory capacity as Chief Development Strategist and Interim Chief Medical Officer, effective as of April.

Mr. Hassan brings a broad range of banking and investment experience in the healthcare and global therapeutics sector to his role at CANbridge.  Most recently, Mr. Hassan was Director, Cross Border Healthcare Investment Banking at China Renaissance Capital, focused on advising US and greater China life science companies on capital-raising activities, and led the US equity capital market activities for the healthcare sector. Before then, he was at Leerink Capital Partners, where he was Senior Analyst/Portfolio Manager, overseeing investments in global therapeutics companies; and at Citadel LLC (Surveyor Capital) as Senior Analyst covering mid- and large-cap global therapeutics equities.  Earlier in his career he worked at Fidelity Investments.  

Mr. Hassan holds a Master of Science in Global Financial Analysis from McCallum Graduate School of Business, Bentley College and a Bachelor of Science in Business from Indiana University.

Prior to founding  his consulting practice,  Dr. Cox was Chief Medical Officer for Editas Medicine, in Cambridge, where he led the clinical development of CRISPR-based genome editing medicines to treat human diseases, resulting in the first IND approval for in vivo delivery of CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing.  Dr. Cox also had a long stint at Sanofi Genzyme, also in Cambridge, culminating as Vice President, Rare Disease Clinical Development, where he oversaw multiple global rare disease clinical development programs, including Cerdelga®; olipudase alfa; Hectoral®; Cerezyme®, and Aldurazyme®, as well as Elaprase® in Asia, among others. Before then, Dr. Cox held several senior medical R&D positions at Genzyme and was the company’s first clinical geneticist recruited to oversee human clinical development programs for rare genetic diseases.  

Dr. Cox is a board-certified clinical geneticist and pediatrician who trained at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he remains on staff and continues to see patients with genetic diseases.  He earned an MD and PhD in Biology from the University of California at San Diego, and a Bachelor of Arts in Biology, from Harvard College. He holds multiple patents and awards and has authored scores of peer-reviewed publications, presentations and book chapters.

“We are delighted to have two such extraordinarily high-caliber executives stepping into leadership roles at CANbridge at this crucial time in the company’s trajectory as a commercial-stage company with a robust clinical pipeline.” said James Xue, PhD, Founder, Chairman and CEO, CANbridge Pharmaceuticals.   “With this strong partnership in place we will lead CANbridge’s growth and transformation into a Chinese sector leader with a global impact in rare disease and specialty care”. 

Dr. Cox replaces Dr. May Orfali, who left the company for personal reasons.  Mr. Hassan assumes Business Development responsibility previously held by Paul Wagner who is now serving as CEO of Forte Biosciences.

About CANbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc. 

CANbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a China-based biopharmaceutical company accelerating development and commercialization of specialty healthcare products for orphan diseases and targeted cancers, focusing on products that are unavailable or address medical needs that are underserved in the region.

CANbridge has been widely recognized as a leader in orphan diseases in China. It has a global partnership with WuXi Biologics to develop and commercialize proprietary therapeutics for the treatment of rare genetic diseases. In addition, it has an exclusive licensing agreement to commercialize Hunterase™, an enzyme replacement therapy for the treatment of Hunter syndrome, developed by GC Pharma and marketed in more than ten countries worldwide. CANbridge also has an oncology portfolio, which includes exclusive rights to develop and commercialize Puma Biotechnology’s NERLYNX® (neratinib), approved in the US, and rights to other novel candidates. 

For more on CANbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc., please go to www.canbridgepharma.com.

Contact:

CANbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc. 

James Xue                                                                    

CEO 

+8610.8414.8018

781.995.0074

Media 

Deanne Eagle

Planet Communications

deanne@planetcommunications.nyc 

917.837.5866