Regulus Therapeutics Appoints Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D. as President and Chief Executive Officer

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Regulus Therapeutics LLC has announced the appointment of Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D., as President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Xanthopoulos is the co-founder and former President and Chief Executive Officer of Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
"Kleanthis has had a distinguished and broadly recognized career as a leader in the life sciences industry," said John Maraganore, Ph.D., Chairman of Regulus, and President and Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam.
"We expect his experience in building organizations from research to development stages will be instrumental as we build a leading company focused on advancing microRNA therapeutics," Maraganore said.
"We are delighted that Kleanthis has joined Regulus," said Stanley Crooke, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Isis. "He has the right combination of entrepreneurial spirit and scientific knowledge balanced with business expertise, to advance the efforts already underway at Regulus."
"MicroRNAs are an exciting new area of biology, and microRNA therapeutics represent a previously unexplored area of pharmaceuticals research that could lead to the emergence of novel high-impact drugs," said Kleanthis G. Xanthopoulos, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Regulus.
"Indeed, due to their mechanism of action, we believe microRNA therapeutics could have important implications for the treatment of a broad range of diseases including cancer, viral infection, and metabolic disorders. I am very excited to be joining Regulus at this time, as Isis and Alnylam have established a solid foundation of scientific and intellectual property leadership comprising an estate of more than 500 patents and decades of RNA-based research and development on which to build this leading biopharmaceutical company."
Before joining Regulus, Dr. Xanthopoulos was a managing director of Enterprise Partners Venture Capital. Prior to that, he was a co-founder and served as President and Chief Executive Officer and Director of Anadys Pharmaceuticals from its inception in May 2000 to November 2006. From 1997 to 2000 he held a variety of positions at Aurora Biosciences Corporation (now Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated) including Vice President, Genomics & Molecular Biology.
Dr. Xanthopoulos participated in The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Human Genome Project and was a Section Head of the National Human Genome Research Institute at NIH from 1995 to 1997. He was an Associate Professor of Molecular Biology at the Karolinska Nobel Medical Institute, Stockholm, Sweden from 1991 to 1995, and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Rockefeller University from 1987 to 1990.
An Onassis scholar, Dr. Xanthopoulos received his B.Sc. in Biology with honors from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, and received both his M.Sc. in Microbiology and Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the University of Stockholm, Sweden.
Dr. Xanthopoulos is a member of the board of directors of Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Odyssey Thera, Inc., and an executive board member of BIOCOM, Southern California's life science industry association, where he chairs the Capital Formation Committee.