Industry Leaders Join SMA Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board
New York, NY – December 1, 2006 – The Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation announces the addition of Ivan Lieberburg, Ph.D., M.D. and Edward Kaye, M.D. to its Scientific Advisory Board. They join a distinguished group of business and scientific leaders who help formulate and execute the SMA Foundation’s drug discovery programs.
Currently, there is no treatment for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), the leading genetic cause of early childhood mortality. A treatment for SMA is estimated to have a market potential of $500 million per year. The SMA Foundation currently has a diverse group of drug discovery collaborations in place with both academia and the private sector. The addition of Drs. Lieberburg and Kaye fortifies the Foundation’s growing partnership with the biotech and pharmaceuticals industry.
Ivan Lieberburg, Ph.D., M.D., is Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Elan, PLC and has extensive experience with basic research and drug development. Dr. Lieberburg, who is presently a Clinical Professor of Medicine at University of California, San Francisco, has been named to a number of honors including: Rockefeller University Fellow, Public Health Corps Scholar, Hartford Foundation Scholar, McKnight Fellow in Neuroscience and National Research Service Award. He has authored over 100 scientific publications. In addition, Dr. Lieberburg worked on the development of numerous preclinical programs and over 14 drugs including Zanaflex® (tizanidine), Zonegran® (zonisamide) and Tysabri® (natalizumab). Dr. Lieberburg serves as director of Hythiam and NeuroMolecular and sits on the scientific advisory boards of Health Care Ventures, Flagship Ventures, Hythiam, NeuroMolecular, CovX and the Keystone Symposium.
Edward Kaye, M.D., is Vice President of Clinical Research at Genzyme Corporation, where he specializes in clinical research in genetic and neurological disorders. Dr. Kaye supervised the clinical trials of Myozyme® (alglucosidase alfa) for Pompe disease. Before joining Genzyme Corporation, Dr. Kaye held several academic positions including Chief of Pediatric Neurology and Director of the Barnett Mitochondrial Laboratory at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, and Chief of Biochemical Genetics and Associate Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is currently a Neurological Consultant at the Children’s Hospital of Boston. In addition to contributing over 100 publications to the medical literature, he also sits on the editorial boards of a number of journals including Annals of Neurology, Journal of Child Neurology and Pediatric Neurology, and is on the Medical Advisory Board of the United Leukodystrophy Foundation.
The addition of these industry leaders increases the SMA Foundation’s scientific leadership to twenty-one distinguished and diverse advisors. Biographies of all of the advisors can be found on the SMA Foundation website, www.smafoundation.org.
About Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation
Founded in 2003, the SMA Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating progress towards a treatment and cure for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) through targeted funding of clinical research and novel drug development efforts. The SMA Foundation estimates that there are currently 50,000 people suffering from SMA in the US, Europe and Japan and that conservatively, the annual market potential for an SMA treatment could exceed $500 million. For more information on the Spinal Muscular Atrophy Foundation, visit www.smafoundation.org or call (646) 253-7100.
About Spinal Muscular Atrophy
Spinal muscular atrophy is a genetic, motor neuron disease caused by degeneration of spinal cord neurons that leads to progressive muscle weakness, atrophy and inability to walk or sit and breathing difficulties. Children afflicted with this disease suffer a premature death due to respiratory failure, generally before reaching two years of age.
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SMA Foundation Contact:
Cynthia Joyce
(646) 253-7100
[email protected]