Proteostasis Therapeutics Announces Management Changes and Appointments

BOSTON, July 23, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTI), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the discovery and development of groundbreaking therapies to treat cystic fibrosis (CF) and other diseases caused by dysfunctional protein processing, today announced the appointment of Geoffrey S. Gilmartin, M.D., M.M.Sc., as its Chief Medical Officer (CMO), and Andrey E. Belous, M.D., Ph.D., as a Senior Medical Director, effective August 5, 2019. Dr. Gilmartin served most recently as Chief Medical Affairs Officer of the Company. Dr. Belous joins the Company from Galapagos NV (NASDAQ:GLPG), where he most recently served as a Medical Director for the company's Phase 3 program in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). Po-Shun Lee, M.D., after a successful 4-year tenure as Chief Medical Officer, will transition out of his current role and will serve as a consultant for the Company.

"We are thrilled with Geoff's continued success at Proteostasis and welcome Andrey to the development team," said Meenu Chhabra, President and Chief Executive Officer of Proteostasis. "Proteostasis is well positioned for an imminent start to the next phase of development with our proprietary CFTR modulator doublet and triplet combinations in CF. Geoff and Andrey bring deep experience in CF and lung fibrosis from their backgrounds at Vertex and Galapagos, respectively, and we look forward to their contributions in these roles. On behalf of the PTI team, I want to thank Po-Shun for his leadership and steadfast commitment to our CF program, and we expect to continue to benefit from his expertise as a consultant to the Company."

Dr. Gilmartin brings nearly a decade of extensive experience leading clinical development. Before becoming Chief Medial Affairs Officer of Proteostasis in February 2019, he served as its Chief Development Officer since joining the Company in August 2016.  From 2014 to 2016, Dr. Gilmartin held positions of increasing responsibility at AstraZeneca plc (NYSE:AZN) and most recently served as senior medical lead in global medicines development for the benralizumab Phase 3 program in severe asthma. From 2011 to 2014, he held positions of increasing responsibility at Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (NASDAQ:VRTX) including serving as medical lead for the Kalydeco® (ivacaftor) clinical development program, as well as spearheading the initiation of Phase 3 trials to support label expansion studies for the drug. In addition to his leadership positions in the life sciences industry, Dr. Gilmartin is an attending physician in the intensive care unit at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and formerly served as director of the BIDMC Sleep Disorders Center and on its pulmonary leadership team. Dr. Gilmartin received a B.A. in History from Dartmouth College, a M.D. from Brown University School of Medicine and a Master of Medical Science in clinical research from Harvard Medical School.

Prior to his time at Galapagos, Dr. Belous held multiple positions at The Medicines Company from 2014 to 2017. These positions included serving as Director, Global Health Science, where he focused on acute care as well as Medical Director where he provided medical, scientific/clinical, strategic, and operational leadership. From 2013 to 2014, he served as Medical Science Liaison at Genzyme, a Sanofi company, where he focused on field-based medical affairs. Dr. Belous obtained his M.D. from I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University, and his Ph.D. in medical sciences from National Research Center of Surgery in Moscow.

About Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc.

Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule therapeutics to treat cystic fibrosis and other diseases caused by dysfunctional protein processing. Headquartered in Boston, MA, the Proteostasis Therapeutics team focuses on identifying therapies that restore protein function. For more information, visit www.proteostasis.com.

Safe Harbor

To the extent that statements in this release are not historical facts, they are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.  Words such as "aim," "may," "will," "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," and similar expressions (as well as other words or expressions referencing future events, conditions or circumstances) are intended to identify forward-looking statements.  Examples of forward-looking statements made in this release include, without limitation, statements regarding the potential of our proprietary combination therapies for the treatment of CF, the potential benefit to patients of our proprietary combination therapies, expected timing of the initiation of, patient enrollment in, data from, the completion of, our clinical studies and cohorts for our clinical programs, the contributions that each of Drs. Gilmartin and Belous will make in their newly appointed roles and the benefits we expect to receive from Dr. Lee's continued consulting arrangement with the Company.  Forward-looking statements made in this release involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, and we, therefore cannot assure you that our plans, intentions, expectations or strategies will be attained or achieved.  Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the possibility final or future results from our drug candidate trials (including, without limitation, longer duration studies) do not achieve positive results or are materially and negatively different from or not indicative of the preliminary results reported by the Company (noting that these results are based on a small number of patients and small data set), uncertainties inherent in the execution and completion of clinical trials (including, without limitation, the possibility that FDA or other regulatory agency comments delay, change or do not permit trial commencement, or intended label, or the FDA or other regulatory agency requires us to run cohorts sequentially or conduct additional cohorts or pre-clinical or clinical studies), in the enrollment of CF patients in our clinical trials in a competitive clinical environment, in the timing of availability of trial data, in the results of the clinical trials, in possible adverse events from our trials, in the actions of regulatory agencies, in the endorsement, if any, by therapeutic development arms of CF patient advocacy groups (and the maintenance thereof), and those set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2019 and our other SEC filings.  We assume no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

CONTACTS:

Investors:
David Pitts / Claudia Styslinger
Argot Partners
212.600.1902
[email protected] / [email protected]

Media:
David Rosen
Argot Partners
212.600.1902
[email protected] 

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SOURCE Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc.