Ambit Biosciences Appoints David Parkinson, M.D., to Board of Directors

SAN DIEGO, April 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Ambit Biosciences Corporation today announced that David R. Parkinson, M.D., has been appointed to the company's board of directors. Dr. Parkinson is a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, a position he has held since 2012, and a member of the board of directors for Threshold Pharmaceuticals, a publicly-traded oncology company, and Zyngenia, Inc. He served as a director of Facet Biotech through its acquisition by Abbott in 2010. 

Prior to joining New Enterprise Associates, Dr. Parkinson was president and chief executive officer of Nodality, a biotechnology company focused on personalized medicine. Before this, he held positions as senior vice president of oncology research at Biogen Idec, vice president of oncology development at Amgen, Inc, and vice president of global clinical oncology development at Novartis Corporation. Dr. Parkinson previously held multiple positions with the National Cancer Institute from 1990 to 1997, including chief of the Investigational Drug Branch and associate director of the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program. He has also served on the National Cancer Policy Forum of the Institute of Medicine and is a past president of the International Society of Biological Therapy. He is a past Chairman of the FDA's Biologics Advisory Committee and member of the FDA Science Board, and is a recipient of the FDA's Cody Medal.  Dr. Parkinson received his medical doctorate from the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine, with internal medicine and hematology/oncology training at McGill University in Montreal and at New England Medical Center in Boston. He has held academic positions at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas and New England Medical Center at Tufts University School of Medicine.

"David brings to Ambit extensive medical and industry experience in oncology, which we believe will bring an appropriate perspective for Ambit at this stage," said Michael Martino, President and CEO of Ambit. "We look forward to his contributions toward the development of quizartinib and the rest of our pipeline."

Added Dr. Parkinson, "I look forward to serving as a director and working with the board and management team to help advance the potentially important new therapeutic agents in the Ambit pipeline."

About Ambit Biosciences

Ambit is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of drugs to treat unmet medical needs in oncology, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases by inhibiting kinases that are important drivers for those diseases. Ambit's lead drug candidate, quizartinib (AC220), is a once-daily, orally-administered potent and selective, inhibitor of FMS-like tyrosine kinase-3 (FLT3) and is currently under clinical development in patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and in newly diagnosed AML patients in combination with chemotherapy as well as maintenance following a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). In addition to quizartinib, Ambit's clinical pipeline includes AC410, an oral JAK2 inhibitor, and CEP-32496, a BRAF inhibitor licensed to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. Ambit's preclinical portfolio includes a proprietary CSF1R inhibitor program.

Contacts:
Ian Stone or David Schull (Media)
Russo Partners
(619) 308-6541
(212) 845-4271
[email protected]  
[email protected]

SOURCE Ambit Biosciences Corporation