Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Khorova named chief scientific officer at RXi

By Mass High Tech Staff

RXi Pharmaceuticals Corp., a biotech in Worcester focused on RNA-interference (RNAi), has developed a new position, naming Anastasia Khorova as its chief scientific officer.

Before joining RXi (Nasdaq: RXII), Khorova served as chief scientific officer and vice president of research and development at Dharmacon Inc., an RNAi compound developer that now operates under Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. Khorova also worked on RNAi science as a research scientist at Amgen Inc.  She holds 30 patents and patent applications and more than 150 abstracts, authored in 40 peer-reviewed publications and several books and served as a guest speaker on numerous occasions.

RXi is a developer of RNA interference drugs designed to block genes linked to disease from producing proteins. The company was launched in January 2007 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and has a scientific advisory board chaired by UMass researcher Craig Mello, winner of a 2006 Nobel prize for his research of RNAi.

Last week, the company announced it had acquired a technology license for an RNAi oral delivery platform, called Oral rxRNA, from UMass. The delivery technology will be used together with RNAi therapies to treat inflammatory diseases such as  rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, Crohn’s disease, atherosclerosis and psoriasis.

In late 2007, RXi licensed (RNAi) sequences from research products giant Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., RXi officials reported. Worcester-based RXi said its exclusive license from Waltham-based Thermo covers the therapeutic uses of RNAi sequences for an undisclosed number of target genes.