KalGene Pharmaceuticals Inc, a biotechnology company developing therapeutics to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease, announced on Friday that is has named James Callaway, PhD as its chief executive officer, effective immediately.

Dr Callaway has more than three decades of biopharmaceutical development experience, mainly targeting CNS therapeutics, and has served most recently as CEO for two privately-held biotech companies. As the CEO of ArmaGen, he brought its products from the laboratory to the clinic, helping the company to emerge as the first to demonstrate the ability of engineered biologics to cross the blood-brain barrier. In addition, he led the Alzheimer's immunotherapy program at Elan Pharmaceuticals, which became the first company to introduce disease-modifying biologics into clinical studies. He has filed and defended numerous NDAs and INDs during his career, including shepherding the approval of MyoBloc and the production of Tysabri. He earlier served in senior development roles at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, SmithKline Beecham, and InGene.

Jacki Jenuth, chairperson of Kalgene's board of directors, said, 'This has been a very important transition year as we have confirmed our initial thesis with respect to validating the company's lead KG207, which in pre-clinical studies was shown to successfully cross the blood brain barrier and safely reduce plaque load. The company has successfully completed early toxicology studies and has carried out all the requisite steps to manufacture product .We are very pleased to have executed on the next key step of our strategy in attracting an accomplished new CEO to the company as we leverage this foundation and address significant inbound interest for the company and its lead program. Jim brings an ideal set of leadership skills and domain expertise to guide the team through the transition from a pre-clinical to a clinical stage company.'