Frequency Therapeutics hires industry vet
pharmafile | April 16, 2018 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Medical Communications | Frequency Therapeutics, biotech, drugs, pharma, pharmaceutical
Frequency Therapeutics is a biotech with big ideas and it has made a big appointment to back up those ideas, by appointing William Chin to join the company as Chief Medical Officer.
Chin arrives at the company with a pretty illustrious past, having worked as Head of Science and Regulatory Affairs at PhRMA, having been a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and holding the position of SVP for Discovery Research and Clinical Investigation at Eli Lilly.
He has, according to the press release, published nearly 300 papers, chapters and books over the course of his career. He will now be tasked with using that acumen to help Frequency take its Progenitor Cell Activation (PCA) Regeneration platform to develop disease-modifying therapeutics.
“Bill joins Frequency at a pivotal point in our growth. With our clinical-stage hearing regeneration program advancing to plan, we are now strategically expanding our PCA efforts into additional therapeutic indications,” said David Lucchino, President, Co-founder and CEO of Frequency. “Dr Chin’s visionary work on translational research at Eli Lilly and Harvard Medical School, where he connected deep biological discoveries and translated them into compelling clinical programs, mirrors the work Frequency is doing with our PCA Regeneration platform.”
The biotech’s approach involves modifying stem cells to regenerate the functions of organs. The technology uses small molecules to “awaken” progenitor cells already existent in the body to restore healthy tissue.
Frequency claims the approach could be used to treat a number of different degenerative conditions, which include hearing loss, demyelination diseases, skin disorders and gastrointestinal conditions.
As mentioned by Lucchino, the biotech has a candidate currently in the clinic for hearing loss that has already progressed through Phase 1 tests and is now moving onto a Phase 2 trial.
Should FX-322 succeed in this trial, it could open up a new treatment for transiently activate inner ear progenitor cells and enable the creation of new inner ear hair cells in the cochlea – the disappearance of the inner ear hair cells is the most common cause of sensorineural hearing loss.
“Frequency is addressing the complexity of regenerative medicine with its interdisciplinary approach building on basic scientific research to create new therapies, while at the same time presenting the opportunity to address numerous diseases such as hearing loss, demyelinating diseases, skin disorders and gastrointestinal conditions, all areas with profound unmet needs,” said Chin. “I am fortunate to join a revolutionary company such as Frequency, which is positioned to change the way we develop therapeutics and treat disease on a foundational level.”
Ben Hargreaves
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