Friday, March 20, 2009

George Vlasuk takes over as Sirtris president

By Marc Songini

Cambridge-based biotech development company Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc. has appointed George Vlasuk president.

Sirtris develops drugs using enzymes called sirtuins to prevent DNA injury or repair the existing damage that causes diseases. Sirtris is a subsidiary of U.K.-based drug giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC.

This week, Sirtris announced Vlasuk will lead Sirtris as an independent discovery performance unit of GSK, reporting to Christoph Westphal, CEO of Sirtris and senior vice president of GSK’s Centre of Excellence for External Drug Discovery.

In his role, Vlasuk will lead all research, development and operations at Sirtris. Vlasuk is a “recognized scientific expert who will be instrumental in helping lead Sirtris through the next stages of our scientific and clinical progress,” stated Westphal.
 
Previously, Vlasuk worked at Wyeth, where he was vice president of metabolic disease and hemophilia within the pharmaceutical division. Prior to joining Wyeth in 2003, he worked for 12 years at Corvas International Inc. (now Dendreon Corp.), where he held several positions, including chief scientific officer. Vlasuk earned a doctorate degree in chemistry and biochemistry from Kent State University.

Last September, Sirtris announced completing an exclusive licensing agreement for Harvard University’s two patent applications of treatments based on SIRT3 enzymes. The prior June, GSK bought Sirtris for $720 million in cash. At that time, GSK said it would keep Sirtris as an autonomous unit of its drug discovery business. It also retained Westphal and the rest of the company’s employees.