Synosia Therapeutics Establishes Scientific Advisory Board

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, California, October 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Synosia Therapeutics today announced the formation of a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) to provide input and guidance on the company's clinical development programs.

Synosia develops and intends to commercialize innovative and clinically differentiated products for unmet medical needs in psychiatry and neurology from its portfolio of six clinically enabled compounds. To optimize the likelihood of success, they invited experts known for their impressive understanding of neuroscience, medicine and drug development to join the SAB and provide independent assessments of development strategies. Their first meeting was in September.

"The distinguished team assembled by Synosia for the Scientific Advisory Board is an extremely well informed group of experts who can provide critical appraisal of the work the company plans to undertake in the development of their impressive portfolio," said J.D. Fitzgerald, FRCP, chairman of the SAB. Dr. Fitzgerald, who has extensive experience in pharmaceutical research and development, currently serves as a consultant in pharmaceutical research and is a co-founder of Synosia.

The other members of the Synosia SAB are:

- Thomas R. Kosten, M.D., Jay H Waggoner Chair and Professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Baylor College of Medicine and Research Director of the Veterans Affairs (VA) National Substance Use Disorders Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) based at the Houston VA.

- David Grahame-Smith, CBE, FRCP, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Oxford, U.K., author of the Oxford Textbook of Clinical Pharmacology and Drug Therapy and former member of the Committee on the Safety of Medicine.

- Alan Schatzberg, M.D., Kenneth T. Norris, Jr. Professor and Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine, author of the Manual of Clinical Psychopharmacology and editor of the Textbook of Psychopharmacology.

"We are honored to have such an esteemed group of advisors to help us extend the reach of the compounds in our portfolio into new therapeutic areas," said Synosia Chief Executive Officer and President Ian Massey, Ph.D. "Having our work informed by the independent points of view of these experts will ensure we apply the highest quality of scientific and medical rigor to our development programs."

About Synosia Therapeutics

Synosia Therapeutics develops and intends to commercialize innovative and clinically differentiated products for unmet medical needs in psychiatry and neurology. The privately-owned company is developing six clinical-stage compounds acquired through key partnerships with Novartis, Roche and Syngenta, including two marketed drugs, that will be tested in new indications extending their reach into new therapeutic areas with combined sales potential in excess of US$2.5 billion. Synosia has offices in Basel, Switzerland, and South San Francisco, CA.

Synosia Therapeutics has raised US$32.5 million funding from Versant Ventures (Menlo Park, CA), Abingworth Management (London), 5AM Ventures (Menlo Park, CA) and Novo A/S (Copenhagen, Denmark). For more information, visit http://www.synosia.com