REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Oct. 20, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Ashvattha Therapeutics (“Ashvattha”), a clinical-stage company developing novel hydroxyl dendrimer therapeutics (HDTs), today announced that Steve Maricich, M.D., Ph.D., joined the company as chief medical officer. Dr. Maricich joins Ashvattha as a seasoned clinical development physician and translational scientist with more than 15 years of industry and academic experience that includes working with small molecules, biologics, cell and gene therapies across multiple therapeutic areas including cancer, GI disease, hematology, neurology, and rare disease.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Maricich to our senior management team,” said Jeff Cleland, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of Ashvattha. “He joins at a pivotal time for the company as we prepare to initiate clinical trials of our neurology hydroxyl dendrimer candidates next year. His neurology background and expertise advancing preclinical programs to clinical development will be a major asset to our team and the growth of the company.”
Dr. Maricich added, “I am excited to join Ashvattha, and I look forward to working with the team to unlock the full potential of the hydroxyl dendrimer platform. To date, attempts to deliver drugs to the brain via systemic administration have not translated to the clinic. I believe that HDTs represent a new precision medicine approach that transcends tissue barriers and possesses the ability to change the standard of care across a number of disease indications.”
Dr. Maricich joins Ashvattha from Calibr and Scripps BioVentures, where he served as the chief medical officer. There, he oversaw the development of clinical-stage oncology and GI programs and designed clinical paths for preclinical programs across a wide range of indications. Dr. Maricich’s previous experience includes the CMO role at Allievex, a rare disease start-up company that he helped spin out of BioMarin Pharmaceuticals. Over the course of his career, Dr. Maricich has secured more than $2M in grant funding from the NIH and other privately operated organizations. Dr. Maricich earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in neuroscience from Case Western Reserve University. He is a board-certified child neurologist with experience as a primary investigator while serving as pediatrics and child neurology faculty at Baylor College of Medicine/Texas Children’s Hospital, Case Western Reserve University/Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, and the University of Pittsburgh/UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.
About Ashvattha Therapeutics
Ashvattha Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotech company developing novel hydroxyl dendrimer therapeutics (HDTs) targeting unmet medical needs in ophthalmology, neurology, inflammation and neuro-oncology. Hydroxyl dendrimers (HDs) are a targeted nanomedicine technology exclusively licensed from our founders, Kannan Rangaramanujam and Sujatha Kannan at Johns Hopkins University. HDs chemically conjugated to disease-modifying drugs create novel proprietary HDTs selectively targeting reactive inflammatory cells in disease tissue with localized sustained effects. Ashvattha has initiated multiple programs with HDTs focused on neurology, ocular neovascular disease including neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema (DME), and hyperinflammation in diseases. For more information, visit: www.avttx.com.
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