What Happened?
San Diego, CA-based Metacrine Appointed Neil McDonnell as Chief Executive Officer
About the Company
We are a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing best-in-class therapies for patients with liver and gastrointestinal, or GI, diseases. Since our founding in 2014, we have invested in building a foundation of chemistry and biology expertise to drive innovative drug discovery and development. We believe these internal capabilities allow us to gain insights into disease targets and mechanisms and more quickly and purposefully design therapies with characteristics that we view as key to safety and efficacy. With this systematic approach, we have designed novel, proprietary farnesoid X receptor (FXR) clinical product candidates arising from a unique chemical scaffold with the potential to be best-in-class for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH, and first- in-class for Inflammatory Bowel Disease, or IBD. In addition to our FXR program, we have continued to invest in drug discovery on other therapeutic targets that have effects on inflammation and/or fibrosis for which we believe we could develop proprietary small molecule therapies.
About the Person
Neil McDonnell has more than 20 years of leadership in top-tier organizations involved in medical research, development, and delivery. He is currently CEO of Metacrine, a venture-backed biotechnology company formed around two metabolic disease programs originating at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Dr. McDonnell previously served as senior vice president and therapeutic area leader for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases at Takeda Pharmaceuticals International where he led the R&D program through FDA approval of the diabetes drugs Nesina (alogliptin), Oseni (alogliptin + pioglitazone), and Kazano (alogliptin + metformin), and with Takeda’s partner Orexigen, the obesity drug Contrave (bupropion and naltrexone). Prior to joining Takeda, Neil held strategy and R&D positions in the Global Health Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. State Department, the biotechnology firm ZymoGenetics, and the biotechnology firm Immunex. He began his career in healthcare as a clinical pharmacist in hematology/oncology and gynecologic oncology at the University of Washington Medical Center. He received a B.S. in Pharmacy and a Doctorate in Pharmacy from the University of Washington. He completed a residency at the University of Washington Medical Centers. He serves on the Board of Trustees for the Pacific Northwest Diabetes Research Institute and the Center for Infectious Disease Research.
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