SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 07, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fair Access Medicines, the non-profit organization dedicated to identifying, developing, and delivering life-saving medicines to poorly-served patients in the US and worldwide at the lowest cost possible, today announced that Dr. Hunter Gillies has joined the management team and will serve as Chief Medical Officer. Most recently, Dr. Gillies served as Senior Director PAH Clinical Research at Gilead Pharmaceuticals, leading its pulmonary vascular R&D clinical team. Previously, he served as Director and Clinical Lead, pulmonary and vascular disease at PGRD and Director at Pfizer of drug development in the sexual health and cardiovascular therapeutic areas. His extensive knowledge in the area of diabetes will be of central importance in Fair Access Medicine’s efforts to provide greater access to insulin.
“Dr. Gillies brings deep clinical and business experience to our team at Fair Access Medicines,” said Dr. James A. Wilkins, President and Founder. “2018 is going to be a very exciting year for Fair Access Medicines, as we continue to expand our program. We are very privileged to have someone with Dr. Gillies’ personal strengths and breadth of experience in diabetes join our senior management team.”
Fair Access Medicines (FAM; a California-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation) has started the first non-profit, virtual pharmaceutical company to address spiraling drug costs. FAM initially plans to develop and then sell Human Insulin at the lowest possible price to diabetic patients. Insulin is only the first drug in FAM’s pipeline.
It is little known that many American diabetics cannot afford their daily insulin medication, whose cost has skyrocketed. Recently a 26-year-old man died while traveling out of state to help his mother. His insurance did not transfer to the state where he had travelled. There are many such stories.
Passion and empathy led the founder, Dr. James A. Wilkins to start Fair Access Medicines. As an executive at both Genentech and Alexion he knew that the manufacturing cost of drug product was the least expensive component in the total cost to patients. Many drugs, including insulin should be cheaper. Dr. Wilkins served at Johns Hopkins University, Yale and UCSF Medical Center and is considered to be an expert at sophisticated protein analytic techniques and in process development and manufacturing: He has brought together the nucleus of the Fair Access Medicines team that will initially produce human insulin and sell directly to patients at low cost.
For more information, please visit at www.fairaccessmedicines.org. Donations are can be made online at: https://www.fairaccessmedicines.org/donate-1/.
Media Contact:
Dr. James Wilkins
Email: jim@fairaccessmedicines.org