Palladio Biosciences Appoints Marella Thorell Chief Financial Officer

October 11, 2019 Off By BusinessWire

-Leadership team enhanced as Company prepares for Phase 3-

NEWTOWN, Pa.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Palladio Biosciences, Inc. (Palladio) http://palladiobio.com/, a privately-owned, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing medicines for orphan diseases of the kidney, announced today the appointment of Marella Thorell as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer.

Ms. Thorell brings over 25 years of experience in executive financial and operational roles and has successfully led multiple M&A, licensing, and fundraising transactions. Most recently, Ms. Thorell served as CFO/COO and an Executive Director of Realm Therapeutics (Nasdaq: RLM) which was acquired by ESSA Pharma (Nasdaq: EPIX) in July 2019, having previously held a number of other senior positions within Realm. Ms. Thorell was appointed a director of ESSA following the acquisition. Ms.Thorell also worked at Campbell Soup Company (NYSE: CPB), in several financial and management roles. She began her career and earned her CPA qualification with Ernst & Young LLP. Ms. Thorell holds a BS in Business from Lehigh University.

“I am very pleased to welcome Marella to Palladio as we expand our executive team to support our clinical and financial development activities. I’m confident her strong investor and financial relationships, public company experience and success leading companies in both development and commercialization stages make her well-suited to support Palladio’s goals,” said Alex Martin, Chief Executive Officer.

“I am thrilled to join a great company and an exceptional team of successful drug developers,” added Ms. Thorell, “I look forward to developing the financial structure and resources to support Palladio’s clinical development efforts to advance lixivaptan as a therapy which holds great promise for patients suffering from Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease.”

About Palladio Biosciences, Inc.:

Palladio Biosciences is a privately-owned, clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing medicines for orphan diseases of the kidney and is located near Philadelphia, PA. Palladio is initially developing its lead drug, lixivaptan, for Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD), an orphan kidney disease for which there are limited treatment options. For more information, please visit www.palladiobio.com.

About Lixivaptan:

Lixivaptan is a potent, selective vasopressin V2 receptor antagonist, a mechanism of action that has clinical proof of concept to slow kidney function decline in adults at risk of rapidly progressing Autosomal Dominant PKD (ADPKD). Lixivaptan received orphan designation by FDA for the treatment of ADPKD and is currently being tested in the ELiSA study, a Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with ADPKD. It was previously administered to more than 1,600 subjects across 36 clinical studies as part of a prior clinical development program for the treatment of hyponatremia. Palladio expects to leverage lixivaptan’s large body of data generated in the hyponatremia clinical program to accelerate the development of lixivaptan for the treatment of ADPKD.

About Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) – Key Facts and Figures:

PKD is an inherited genetic disease that affects more than 140,000 people in the United States and millions globally. ADPKD is the most common type of PKD. A person with ADPKD has a 50 percent chance of passing the disease on to each of his or her children. The disease is characterized by uncontrolled growth of fluid-filled cysts in the kidney, which can each grow to be as large as a football. Symptoms often include kidney infections and chronic pain. The continued enlargement of cysts and replacement of normal kidney tissue causes irreversible loss of renal function. In the United States, approximately 2,500 new people with PKD require dialysis or a kidney transplant every year, making PKD the 4th leading cause of kidney failure. There is no cure for PKD.

Please note that lixivaptan is for investigational use only.

Contacts

Palladio Biosciences, Inc.

Linda Hogan, +1 908-294-8728

[email protected]