HAYWARD, Calif., Sept. 10, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Dr. Napoleone Ferrara, a world renowned authority on angiogenesis, and the developer of the anti-cancer drug Avastin has joined Protelica's newly formed scientific advisory board.
A San Francisco Bay Area based innovator in the field of protein engineering and evolution, Protelica Inc., will greatly benefit from the contribution of one of Biotech's most creative thinkers. During his 25 year tenure at Genentech, Dr. Ferrara became widely known for his work on angiogenesis, the formation of the network of blood vessels supporting the growth of tumors and their transition from a benign to a malignant state. His research contributed to the development of Avastin, one of the leading drugs used to fight breast, brain, colon and other forms of cancer. Dr. Ferrara has also developed a treatment for wet, age-related macular degeneration, one of the main causes of vision loss in the elderly, and the treatment has been used on more than a million patients worldwide.
During his highly esteemed career, Dr. Ferrara has earned dozens of scientific achievement awards. Most notably the prestigious Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, which he received in 2010 for his discovery of the Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF), and for his translational work on the development of therapies of major clinical significance. The Lasker-DeBakey award is often referred to as the "American Nobel," since seventy-nine Lasker recipients have been awarded the Nobel Prize. In 2012, Dr. Ferrara went on to receive The Economist's Innovation Award for Bioscience, and more recently the Breakthrough Prize in biomedicine. Dr. Ferrara is currently serving as the Senior Deputy Director for Basic Sciences at the University of California, San Diego where he holds the Distinguished Professorship of Pathology at the Moores Cancer Center.
"Dr. Napoleone Ferrara will be a driving asset among our scientific advisors, and we are extremely honored by his endorsement," declares Dr. Roberto Crea, Founder and CEO of Protelica, and one of the first four scientific directors at Genentech, "Napoleone and I share some history in biotech as contributors to the success of Genentech along its 35 years of scientific leadership, and we both subscribe to an exciting vision, and passion for the future of biotech and its applications in protein therapeutics," adds Crea.
"I have been following Roberto Crea's brilliant career since I was a young post-doc," stated Dr. Ferrara, "Protelica's patents and innovations in protein engineering are indicative of a truly progressive company. Indeed, the technology has led to a wonderful pipeline of next generation biotherapeutics."
"Dr. Ferrara's knowledge, vision, and experience in translational medicine is a perfect fit for our young biotherapeutics programs here at Protelica," said Mike Honeysett, Chief Business Officer of Protelica. "His wisdom and expertise will provide our teams with the intelligence needed to propel our biotherapeutics programs forward. Indeed, his expertise truly complements our recent Notice of Allowance for our VEGFR2 family of Pronectins."
About Protelica
Protelica, Inc. is a biotech company founded in 2006 by Dr. Roberto Crea as result of a spin off from BioRen, Inc. a company he sold to Pfizer in 2005. Protelica has developed a number of proprietary DNA Mutagenesis techniques that are applied to protein engineering and optimization. The Company has developed a number of R&D relationships with companies in the biotech field and has received a Phase I and II from the National Science Foundation for its platform technology for the development of Antibody Mimics based upon the Fibronectin Module 14 human scaffold. The Company has laboratory operations in Hayward, California.
Protelica Forward-looking Statements
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