CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Walden Biosciences, Inc. (Walden), a private, venture-backed biotechnology company focused on transforming the treatment of kidney disease, today announced that the Company has appointed Peter Guest Linde, M.D., F.A.S.N., as its first Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Linde, a nephrologist with more than a decade of experience treating patients, joins Walden with more than thirty years of experience in research, clinical development, and corporate leadership. Dr. Linde will serve on Walden Biosciences Senior Leadership Team and will report to the Chief Executive Officer.
“We are pleased to have Peter join the Walden team. His vast clinical development experience and medical expertise in nephrology will be invaluable as we transition from pre-clinical development to human clinical development with our two lead programs in the coming year,” said Blaine McKee, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Walden Biosciences. “Peter is the ideal candidate as he has decades of experience designing and executing winning clinical programs to bring new medicines across the spectrum from the lab to patients. At Walden, we are building our leadership with sector-specific experts in order to successfully advance our novel, multi-disciplinary approach that directly targets the kidneys to prevent damage and restore kidney function.”
“I am truly excited to be joining Walden Biosciences as we have a unique opportunity to change the course of kidney disease with approaches that directly target the kidneys to attack disease at its core rather than merely treat the manifestations,” noted Dr. Linde. “Walden is at an important juncture in its growth as we advance these promising programs and transition into a clinical company. I look forward to working with my colleagues to build Walden into a leading biopharmaceutical company transforming the treatment of kidney diseases.”
Most recently, Dr. Linde was at Morphic Therapeutic, Inc. where he served as Chief Medical Officer. Prior to that, he was Vice President-Medical Research at Acceleron Pharma, Inc. Before that, Dr. Linde was Project Lead-Clinical Asset Development at AbbVie, Inc. Earlier, he was Senior Director-Clinical Development at FibroGen, Inc. In addition, Dr. Linde was Founder, Director, and President of Triaxis Medical Devices, Inc. He started his corporate career at Johnson & Johnson, Inc., where he was the Director-Clinical Research. Dr. Linde completed his Clinical Fellowship in Nephrology at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he also was a Senior Renal Transplant Fellow. Dr. Linde completed his Internal Medicine internship and residency at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center and earned his M.D. at Stanford University School of Medicine and his Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemical Engineering and Applied Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Dr. Linde is an author on more than a dozen manuscripts and more than two dozen clinical presentations. He holds several renal-related U.S. patents.
About Walden Biosciences
Walden Biosciences is focused on developing breakthrough medicines to treat both rare and common forms of kidney disease. Founded by world-renowned renal experts, Walden is applying novel, multi-disciplinary approaches that directly target the kidneys to prevent damage, slow disease progression and restore kidney function. Walden’s programs address two novel targets for therapeutic intervention, directly targeting two cell types in the kidney: podocytes and proximal tubular cells. Dysfunction of these cells are critical progression drivers for the majority of renal diseases. Walden’s most advanced program is a humanized antibody that inhibits soluble urokinase plasminogen activating receptor, or suPAR, a pro-inflammatory mediator that causes podocyte dysfunction and renal disease. Walden’s second program is a small molecule that is designed to restore the function of dynamin, an enzyme responsible for the maintenance of the cytoskeletal architecture of podocytes and proximal tubule cells. Both programs offer the promise to deliver disease-modifying, breakthrough therapies to transform the treatment of renal disease. Walden was launched in late 2020 with a $51 million Series A round of financing led by Arch Venture Partners with participation from other leading venture capital firms. For more information, please visit www.waldenbiosciences.com.
Investor Contact:
Stern Investor Relations
Anne Marie Fields
Managing Director
annemarie.fields@sternir.com
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