BiPar Expands Management Team to Advance Lead PARP Inhibitor Product Candidate Into Phase 2 Trials ...( BRISBANE Calif. Sept. 25 /- BiPar...),Health

BRISBANE, Calif., Sept. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- BiPar Sciences, Inc., a privately held biopharmaceutical company developing novel cancer therapies, today announced that it has hired industry veterans Eric D. Malek as vice president of corporate development and Deborah A. Thomas as vice president for regulatory affairs.

"Over the last 12 years, Eric has played an integral role in clinical stage product partnerships involving major pharmaceutical and biotech companies and leading academic cancer centers and Debbie has been involved in the development of Avastin and Omnitarg, among other key oncology products, at Genentech," said G. Kirk Raab, acting chief executive officer and chairman of BiPar. "Their strong track records of success and experience will help as we begin Phase 2 testing of our promising lead compound, BSI-201, in three major cancers later this year and bring two more oncology compounds into the clinic next year."

BiPar is developing multiple compounds designed to inhibit PARP-1 (poly-ADP-ribose polymerase), an enzyme crucial to cell repair and upregulated in certain tumors.

Mr. Malek joins BiPar after seven years at Allos Therapeutics where, as vice president of corporate development, he played a pivotal role in shifting Allos' strategy to focus solely on oncology assets. He led the licensing effort to acquire both oncology products currently in their portfolio: pralatrexate, a novel antifolate currently in a registration trial in peripheral T-cell lymphoma, and RH1, currently in a Phase 1 trial for solid tumors. Before Allos, Mr. Malek held business development positions at Gilead Sciences, Inc., NeXstar Pharmaceuticals, Ilex Oncology, Inc. and Research Corporation Technologies. He has an undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Arizona and an M.B.A. from the University of Michigan Business School.

Dr. Thomas worked at Genentech, Inc. for almost 17 years, most recently as a senior director of clinical regul
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