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Exosome Diagnostics Announces Dr. John Holaday Will Join Its Board of Directors
Serial Entrepreneur and Scientific Thought-Leader Joins Distinguished Team
NEW YORK, Dec. 17, 2008 – Exosome Diagnostics, Inc., the developer of proprietary genetics-based diagnostic tests with applications in oncology and metabolic disease, today announced that John Holaday, Ph.D. has joined the Company’s Board of Directors. Dr. Holaday, formerly listed among the 500 most cited scientists in the world by the Science Citation Index, will play a key role in Exosome Diagnostics’ efforts to commercialize proprietary genetics based diagnostics of new cancers, identify the occurrence of post operative cancers, and more precisely monitor the efficacy of drug therapies in oncology and endocrinology.
“Dr. Holaday’s business and clinical development acumen offers a significant resource to Exosome Diagnostics as we expand our clinical trials and advance the Company’s cancer diagnostic products,” said James McCullough, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Exosome. “His insight and knowledge as to development strategy and product commercialization will prove invaluable as the Company advances its technology forward, aligning it with the needs of patients, practitioners and payers to improve standards of care.”
Holaday, the Founding Managing Director and CEO of QRxPharma (ASX: QRX and OTCQX: QRXPY), a specialty pharmaceutical company specializing in pain and CNS diseases and headquartered in Sydney, Australia and Bedminster, New Jersey. A veteran life-science entrepreneur, Dr. Holaday has built five biopharmaceutical companies over the past 19 years, raising more than $400M in public and private financing. Dr. Holaday founded EntreMed, (ENMD, NASDAQ) in 1992 and served as its Chairman, President and CEO until his retirement in 2003 and was the co-founder, director, Scientific Director and SVP of Medicis Pharmaceutical Corporation (MRX, NYSE). He also founded MaxCyte, Inc., co-founded HarVest Bank of Maryland, and is a member of the Board of Directors of Qbit, CytImmune Sciences and Accelovance.
“It is an honor and privilege to be selected to serve on Exosome’s board of directors,” said Dr. Holaday. “I look forward to fulfilling my duties as a new board member and helping the Company bring to market revolutionary diagnostic products.”
Prior to joining the private sector, he was the founder and Chief of the Neuropharmacology Branch at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research for 21 years. He was a Professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine until 1996 and is currently a Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.
In 2008 Dr. Holaday received the Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award from the University of Alabama (2008), and was named to the Ernst &Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year 2006 Hall of Fame. Dr. Holaday holds more than 30 patents and has published more than 200 scientific articles and five books. Dr. Holaday serves on the Leadership Boards for the College of Arts and Sciences, University of Alabama (U of A) and the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI). He is a graduate of the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine with a PhD in neuropharmacology.
About Exosome Diagnostics
Exosome Diagnostics is a developer of proprietary genetics-based diagnostic tests with applications in oncology and metabolic disease. The company’s core technology is based on the discovery that circulating nanovesicles called exosomes contain unique genetic markers that can be reliably harvested from blood and used diagnostically for cancers and metabolic diseases. Exosome Diagnostics’ lead program is a blood-based diagnostic test for the management of brain tumor patients. For more information, visit www.exosomedx.com.
Editor’s Note: Photograph is available on request