Altimmune, Inc. Appoints M. Scott Harris as Chief Medical Officer
September 09, 2019 at 07:00 am EDT
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Altimmune, Inc. announced it has appointed M. Scott Harris, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Harris is succeeding Dr. Sybil Tasker, who resigned June 30, 2019 to continue her professional focus on infectious diseases. Dr. Harris is an accomplished drug development scientist who has led numerous global clinical studies and programs in GI and liver diseases. Previously, he was co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Lyric Pharmaceuticals, helping raise a $21 million Series A round in 2014. He has also served as Chief Medical Officer of Avaxia Biologics, interim Chief Medical Officer of Tranzyme Pharma, and Chief Medical Officer of Ocera Therapeutics. Dr. Harris was also Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Napo Pharmaceuticals where he authored the pivotal clinical study that led to the approval of crofelemer (Mytesi®), the first Phase 2/3 adaptive trial design resulting in a drug approval. Earlier in his career he held senior roles in global clinical development and medical affairs at Otsuka Pharmaceuticals and Abbott. He sits on the faculty of Georgetown University School of Medicine as an Adjunct Professor, where he directs a course on drug development under a grant from the NIH. Dr. Harris has been a consultant on third-world drug development for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a speaker at national and international forums on drug development. Dr. Harris has an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and an MS in Administrative Medicine and Population Health from the University of Wisconsin Medical School. His post-graduate training includes residencies at John Hopkins Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania, and a Gastroenterology and Hepatology Fellowship at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Altimmune, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for obesity and liver diseases. The Company's lead product candidate, pemvidutide, is a GLP-1/glucagon dual receptor agonist that is being developed for the treatment of obesity and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH). The Company has completed the MOMENTUM Phase II obesity trial and is being studied in the IMPACT Phase IIb MASH trial. It is also developing HepTcell, an immunotherapeutic product candidate for patients chronically infected with the hepatitis B virus (HBV). The Company has completed the enrollment in its Phase II clinical trial of HepTcell. Its product candidates are based on its proprietary platform technologies, such as EuPort-based Peptide Technology and Synthetic Peptide Technology-Densigen. The Companyâs wholly owned subsidiaries include Altimmune, LLC, Altimmune UK, Limited, Spitfire Pharma, LLC and Altimmune AU Pty, Limited.