aTyr Pharma Appoints Frederic Chereau as President and Chief Operating Officer

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 5, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- aTyr Pharma ("aTyr"), an innovative biotherapeutics enterprise, announced today that Frederic Chereau has joined aTyr as president and chief operating officer. Mr. Chereau has more than 20 years of experience in bringing new rare disease products to market and has held key leadership positions at Shire and Genzyme. Mr. Chereau's appointment will support aTyr's efforts to advance its Physiocrine biology into meaningful therapeutics to treat rare, grave immune disorders.

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"Mr. Chereau's strong business and product commercialization experience in rare diseases expands our rare disease team at this key time for growing our business in diseases that have little or no treatments," said John Mendlein, Ph.D., CEO and executive chairman of aTyr Pharma. "Mr. Chereau will further guide our global outreach and strategic partnerships to optimize value creation for aTyr as we translate Physiocrine biology into meaningful protein therapeutics for patients." 

"aTyr scientists have constructed an impressive therapeutic enterprise to treat rare disease patients with immune imbalances.  These therapeutic applications represent significant commercial opportunities. The team has performed an unparalleled, deep interrogation of the novel roles of Physiocrines in naturally balancing the immune system and resolving different types of immune responses," said Mr. Chereau. "I look forward to working with the aTyr team as we unlock the therapeutic potential of this new protein class and extend our commitment to helping patients with rare diseases."

Mr. Chereau was most recently senior vice president, Global Angioedema Franchise Lead at Shire, where he had worldwide strategic and financial responsibility for the overall franchise activities.  Prior to that, as president and chief executive officer of Pervasis Therapeutics (acquired by Shire in 2012), he led the company through key strategies for operational, business development portfolio and R&D refinement.  Before Pervasis, Mr. Chereau worked at Genzyme from 1999 to 2008, where he held roles with increasing responsibility initially within Genzyme France and Genzyme Europe and achieved the position of vice president and general manager of the Cardiovascular Business Unit at Genzyme Corporation. Prior to Genzyme, he started his career at Hemotech, where he held sales and marketing roles. Mr. Chereau achieved his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Paris and received his master's degree in management from La Rochelle Business School in France and his EMBA from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France and Singapore.

About Physiocrines
Physiocrines act as extracellular signaling molecules to orchestrate physiological homeostasis in response to stress, which often involves an immune system response. Physiocrines are naturally occurring human proteins derived from tRNA synthetases.  They play fundamental roles in human physiology as part of the resolution of different types of immune responses.  As potent endogenous modulators of inflammation, Physiocrines offer the opportunity for modulating biological pathways through new naturally occurring mechanisms, many of which have multiple therapeutic advantages, including improved selectivity, efficacy and reduced side effect profiles compared to many existing anti-inflammatory therapeutics.

About aTyr Pharma
aTyr Pharma develops biotherapeutics based on Physiocrine biology.  aTyr's key programs currently focus on grave, rare immune disorders.  These diseases are serious potentially life threatening autoimmune conditions, for which there are currently no effective, safe, long term treatments. aTyr established a dominant intellectual property estate to protect the core therapeutics, as well as associated diagnostics. The privately held biotech was founded by The Scripps Research Institute Professor Paul Schimmel, a leading aminoacyl tRNA synthetase scientist, and is backed by top life sciences investors including Alta Partners, Cardinal Partners, Domain Associates and Polaris Ventures. For more information, please visit http://www.atyrpharma.com.

SOURCE aTyr Pharma