Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Rib-X’s new clinical advisory board taps Harvard, Tufts, others

Antibiotics developer Rib-X Pharmaceuticals Inc. reports that it has formed a clinical advisory board, comprised of six infectious disease specialists, which will provide oversight and counsel on the New Haven, Conn.-based company’s clinical development programs.

The chairman on the new board is Robert C. Moellering, Jr., M.D. From 1999 to 2005, Moellering was the Herrman L. Blumgart Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and chairman of the department of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. He now holds the Shields Warren-Mallinckrodt chair of Medical Research at Harvard Medical School. Other members named to the new advisory board include:

• Helen W. Boucher, M.D., assistant professor of medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, director of the Infectious Diseases Fellowship Program, and staff physician in the division of Geographic Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Tufts Medical Center;

• Henry F. Chambers, M.D., chief professor of medicine in the division of Infectious Diseases at San Francisco General Hospital, and the director of the University of California, San Francisco Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program;

• Barbara E. Murray, M.D., director of the division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Texas-Houston Medical School;

• Leon G. Smith, M.D., professor of medicine and preventive medicine / community health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, chair of the residency program in Internal Medicine at Seton Hall University School of Graduate Medical Education, and the director of medicine and chief of Infectious Disease at St. Michael’s Medical Center;

• Richard P. Wenzel, M.D., professor and chairman of the department of Internal Medicine, senior associate dean for Clinical Affairs, and president of MCV Physicians at the Medical College of Virginia/Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.

Rib-X is focused on the discovery and development of novel antibiotics for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant infections. In June 2006, Rib-X topped the list of New England tech companies’ 2006 second-quarter venture capital funding when it received $50 million in Series C financing.