Concert Pharmaceuticals Broadens Management Team and Expands Product Advisory Board

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Concert Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today the appointment of Lijun Wu, Ph.D., as Vice President, Biology. In this newly created position, Dr. Wu will have responsibility for Concert’s non-clinical pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, drug metabolism, and bioanalytical functions and will report to Roger Tung, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Concert.

Concert also announced today the addition of Lee Brettman, M.D. and Dennis Giesing, Ph.D., to its Product Advisory Board (PAB). They will provide Concert’s PAB further expertise in the areas of clinical development and pharmacology. The PAB was established at Concert’s inception to provide a source of deep industry expertise and to advise company management on development and commercialization strategies for product candidates. With the addition of Drs. Brettman and Giesing, the PAB consists of eight members.

“Lijun has a record of demonstrated success within the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry across a range of therapeutic areas. We are very pleased to welcome her to the Concert team and look forward to her contributions as we continue to expand our product pipeline,” said Dr. Tung. “We are also very pleased that Drs. Brettman and Giesing have joined our PAB. They are highly accomplished industry veterans who will provide valuable expertise as we extend more of our pipeline into and through development. Concert’s exceptionally strong PAB reflects our commitment to successfully develop innovative, new medicines based on our deuterium chemistry platform.”

Lijun Wu, Ph.D. has more than 15 years experience in research and development in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry and was instrumental in bringing several compounds to clinical development. Prior to joining Concert she was Vice President, Discovery Research at Resolvyx Pharmaceuticals where she oversaw the company’s research and preclinical development efforts. Before that she was the Executive Director of Atherosclerosis in Cardiovascular Research at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. She also held management positions at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and various positions at LeukoSite Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Millennium). Dr. Wu is an author or co-author of more than 60 peer-reviewed publications and an inventor of numerous patents. In 2005, Dr. Wu was named one of Mass High Tech’s Women to Watch. She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Cell Biology from Northwestern University and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in Biological Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School.

Lee Brettman, M.D., FACP, has nearly 20 years of industry experience in start-up and large biotech companies as well as major pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Brettman’s medical background is in internal medicine and infectious diseases. He currently serves as Chief Medical Officer at Alnara Pharmaceuticals. He is the former President and CEO of Dynogen Pharmaceuticals and has held senior medical roles at leading biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, including Millennium Pharmaceuticals, LeukoSite, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, and Schering Plough Research Institute. Over the course of his career, he has held a number of academic, research, and teaching appointments. Dr. Brettman received his B.S. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his M.D. from Baylor College of Medicine.

Dennis Giesing, Ph.D., has more than 30 years of experience in drug development. He currently serves as Head of Research at Cortria Corporation. Before joining Cortria, he held a variety of senior scientific and leadership roles within Aventis Pharmaceuticals. Most recently, Dr. Giesing had worldwide responsibility for the Aventis R&D product pipeline from late discovery through early clinical development. Prior to his global R&D responsibilities at Aventis, Dr. Giesing held senior R&D leadership roles in translational medicine, drug metabolism and clinical pharmacokinetics at Hoechst Marion Roussel, Marion Merrell Dow, and Marion Laboratories. Dr. Giesing earned a B.S. in Chemistry and his Ph.D. in Biochemical Pharmacology at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.

About Concert

Concert Pharmaceuticals is a clinical stage biotechnology company focused on the application of deuterium chemistry to create novel and differentiated small molecule drugs. Concert’s approach leverages known activity and safety of existing drugs to reduce time, risk and expense of drug research and development. The Company has a broad research pipeline encompassing many therapeutic areas including infectious disease and renal disease, among others. In 2009, Concert entered into a potential $1 billion strategic alliance with GlaxoSmithKline to develop and commercialize certain deuterium-containing medicines. Founded in 2006, Concert has raised more than $110 million of venture and institutional capital. For more information on Concert Pharmaceuticals, please visit www.concertpharma.com.

Concert Pharmaceuticals and the CoNCERT logo are trademarks of Concert Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Contacts

Concert Pharmaceuticals
Justine E. Koenigsberg (investors), 781-674-5284

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