Celladon Corporation Announces Appointment of Gregg Alton and Graham Cooper to its Board of Directors

SAN DIEGO, Sept. 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Celladon Corporation, a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on developing novel therapies by applying its leadership position in the field of SERCA enzymes, announced today it has appointed Gregg Alton and Graham Cooper to its Board of Directors.

"We are pleased to appoint Gregg and Graham to our Board of Directors," commented Krisztina Zsebo Ph.D., President and CEO of Celladon.  "They each bring extensive experience in the biotechnology industry and we expect they will provide valuable strategic contributions to our Board."

Gregg Alton is currently executive vice president of corporate and medical affairs and chief compliance officer at Gilead Sciences, a position he has held since August 2009.  From 2000 to 2009, Mr. Alton held various positions with Gilead, including associate general counsel, general counsel, vice president and senior vice president.  Earlier in his career, Mr. Alton was an associate at the law firms of Cooley LLP and Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo, P.C. where he advised and represented biotechnology clients in a wide range of corporate transactions.  Mr. Alton currently serves on the boards of directors of Gilead Healthcare PAC, the Gilead Foundation, the AIDS Institute and BayBio, a San Francisco life sciences industry organization.  He also serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the University of California, San Francisco Global Health Group and the Dean's Advisory Council at Stanford Law School.  Mr. Alton received a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. 

Graham Cooper is currently chief financial officer at Receptos Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company focused on therapeutics for immune disorders. Mr. Cooper served as executive vice president of finance and chief financial officer at Geron Corporation during 2012, a biopharmaceutical company focused on cancer therapies.  From 2006 to 2011, Mr. Cooper served as senior vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer of Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on obesity therapeutics.  Previously, Mr. Cooper held positions of increasing responsibility, including director, health care investment banking, at Deutsche Bank Securities, a leading global investment bank, where he was responsible for executing and managing a wide variety of financing and merger and acquisition transactions in the life sciences field.  Previously, he worked in audit and accounting services at Deloitte & Touche LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, and was previously a C.P.A.  Mr. Cooper holds a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. 

About Celladon
We are a clinical-stage biotechnology company applying our leadership position in the field of calcium dysregulation by targeting SERCA enzymes to develop novel therapies for diseases with tremendous unmet medical needs. Sarco/endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase, or SERCA, enzymes are a family of enzymes that play an integral part in the regulation of intra-cellular calcium in all human cells. Calcium dysregulation is implicated in a number of important and complex medical conditions and diseases, such as heart failure, diabetes and neurodegenerative diseases. Our therapeutic portfolio for diseases characterized by SERCA enzyme deficiency includes both gene therapies and small molecule compounds. MYDICAR, our most advanced product candidate, uses gene therapy to target SERCA2a, which is an enzyme that becomes deficient in patients with heart failure. In a 39-patient randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 2a trial in patients with systolic heart failure, which we refer to as CUPID 1, MYDICAR was found to be safe and well-tolerated, reduced heart failure-related hospitalizations, improved patients' symptoms, quality of life and serum biomarkers, and improved key markers of cardiac function predictive of survival, such as end systolic volume. Based on these results, as well as our previous preclinical studies and clinical trials, we advanced MYDICAR to a 200-patient randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled international Phase 2b trial in patients with systolic heart failure, which we refer to as CUPID 2. We expect to complete enrollment of CUPID 2 in the first quarter of 2014 and announce results in mid-2015.

SOURCE Celladon Corporation