HemoShear Therapeutics Names H. Thomas Watkins to Board of Directors

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Nov. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- HemoShear Therapeutics, LLC, a privately held biotechnology company focused on discovering drugs for metabolic disorders, announced today the appointment of H. Thomas Watkins to its Board of Directors (BOD). Mr. Watkins is the former president and chief executive officer of Human Genome Sciences (HGS), and also served as the chairman of the Biotechnology Industry Organization.

"Tom is a widely respected leader in the biotechnology industry and I am thrilled that he has chosen to join our Board of Directors," said Jim Powers, Chairman and CEO of HemoShear Therapeutics. "The combination of Tom's track record of industry leadership, building successful companies, and serving on the boards of both private and public companies will be of great value in guiding our strategy to bring treatments to patients with significant unmet needs."

During his tenure at HGS, Mr. Watkins refocused the company around the development, approval and launch of Benlysta^™, a revolutionary new therapy for systemic lupus.  He later led the process that resulted in the acquisition of HGS by GlaxoSmithKline.  Prior to HGS, Mr. Watkins held senior roles at Abbott Laboratories and its affiliates in the U.S. and Asia, including serving as the president of TAP Pharmaceutical Products, a joint venture between Abbott and Takeda Pharmaceutical, Inc. He currently serves on the Board of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), of which he was Chairman, and is Vice Rector of the Board of Visitors of The College of William and Mary.  He is also Chairman of Vanda Pharmaceuticals and serves on the board of Horizon Pharma plc.

"I am pleased to join the HemoShear Therapeutics team because of their unique ability to recreate human diseases and to translate their disease insights into new drug discoveries," said Mr. Watkins.  "I am particularly excited that their primary focus is in children's rare diseases and common fatty liver diseases, but I am also impressed by the potential of their platform to expand the discovery and development of new drugs beyond these indications."

Mr. Watkins received a BBA degree from the College of William and Mary and his MBA from the University Of Chicago Graduate School Of Business, now the Booth School of Business. 

About HemoShear Therapeutics

HemoShear Therapeutics is a biotechnology company focused on discovering drugs that treat metabolic disorders.  Our transformational tissue models allow us to understand human diseases at a level not possible until now. Our current drug discovery programs are focused on organic acidemias, a group of rare genetic metabolic disorders, and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), a common liver disease.   

At HemoShear Therapeutics, we believe that best in class models of human disease lead to meaningful drug targets and optimal therapies. We THINK HUMAN^™.

About REVEAL-Tx™

REVEAL-Tx™, HemoShear Therapeutics' proprietary discovery platform provides a powerful lens to interrogate biological mechanisms of human disease to identify novel targets and biomarkers and to create superior therapeutics.  No other discovery platform can provide such insights into diseases and assess therapeutics at clinically relevant concentrations.

SOURCE HemoShear Therapeutics