Prosonix Appoints Dr Geoff Down as Chief Medical Officer
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Prosonix has announced the appointment of Dr Geoff Down to the newly created role of Chief Medical Officer. Dr Down takes up his position immediately and will oversee the clinical development of Prosonix's product pipeline, including PSX1001, PSX1002 and the novel PSX2000 combination series.
Dr Down has more than 18 years' clinical development experience in the pharmaceutical sector, following ten years in clinical practice in a range of hospital specialties.
He joins Prosonix after a successful period running his own company, providing services as a consultant pharmaceutical physician.
During this period he worked in clinical safety for Pfizer R&D, in clinical development for RespiVert Ltd (a spinout from Imperial Innovations that aims to identify new treatments for COPD, cystic fibrosis and severe asthma), and since December 2010 he has been working in clinical pharmacology at GlaxoSmithKline's R&D Respiratory and Immuno-Inflammation medicines development centre (GSK RII MDC).
Dr Down worked in a permanent role at GSK RII MDC from 2002 to 2007, as Director Clinical Pharmacology and Discovery Medicine.
In this position, he managed global clinical development programmes and post-licensing support, including significant contributions to the progression of two significant programmes through to global marketing licence submissions [Ariflo (oral cilomilast for COPD) and Avamys/Veramyst (inhaled fluticasone furoate for allergic rhinitis].
He has also held senior roles at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical R&D, ASTA Medica/Baxter and Rhône-Poulenc Rorer.
Dr Down has been a principal investigator or company sponsor for more than 50 early clinical development studies, including first-in-human studies, and over 30 full clinical development trials.
He has authored and co-authored several papers, principally in the respiratory field, and presented on a range of regulatory and clinical development topics. He is a Fellow and Senior Specialist Adviser at the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Royal Colleges of Physicians (UK).
Commenting on the appointment, David Hipkiss, Prosonix' CEO, said: "Geoff's appointment is pivotal for Prosonix as we aim to become a fully-fledged pharmaceutical company operating within the respiratory space. Geoff's extensive clinical, regulatory and medical experience makes him ideally suited to lead Prosonix' clinical development. We are on course to file our lead candidate PSX1001 for asthma later this year and expect to announce further progress on the clinical strategy for PSX1002 and the PSX2000 combination series in the near future. With the recent appointment of Rob Crocker as Head of Regulatory Affairs, I believe that we are in a strong position to successfully implement and advance our clinical and commercial strategy."
Dr Down, added: "There is still a large need for better and more effective treatments despite the development of new respiratory therapeutics. I have been very impressed with Prosonix' drug development strategy, based on its proprietary particle engineering technology, which has shown the potential to create more effective and safer respiratory medicines for patients. I am excited to be joining the Company as it enters the next stage of growth and look forward to contributing my expertise to help it achieve its upcoming clinical and regulatory milestones."
