KeifeRx Appoints Garrett Vygantas, MD, MBA, to Board of Directors

WASHINGTON, Feb. 14, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- KeifeRx, an emerging clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery and development of new treatment options for neurodegenerative and immune diseases, announced today the appointment of Garrett Vygantas, MD, MBA, to serve on the Company's Board of Directors. 

Dr. Vygantas brings more than 20 years of industry, investment and entrepreneurial experience to KeifeRx. He is a founding Managing Partner of Riverine Ventures, a life science and healthcare dedicated venture capital firm, and currently serves as a Board member or advisor to several life sciences companies, including AEye Health, ArtiSight, Circularis, Corsair Pharma, Eliksa Therapeutics, Endotronix, Exo Imaging, HealthBridge, Inflammatix, and Pieces Technologies.

"The addition of Garrett to our Board of Directors comes at an important phase in the evolution of KeifeRx and continues what has been a transformative period for the company," said Chris Hoyt, KeifeRx's Chief Executive Officer.  "Garrett possesses an unrivaled combination of financial and life sciences industry experience, which will bring new perspective and a depth of business acumen that will benefit KeifeRx as we seek to advance our pipeline of novel tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) for the treatment of multiple, high-need neurodegenerative and immune diseases.  On behalf of the Board, I am pleased to welcome Garrett to KeifeRx and look forward to benefitting from his knowledge and expertise."

Dr. Vygantas' expertise spans healthcare, medtech, digital health and biopharma investing and operations. He has invested on behalf of OSF Ventures, Jump Capital and Burrill & Co, and was the founding CEO of TherOptix, NewBridge Pharmaceuticals and Mitre Medical. At NewBridge, Dr. Vygantas and his team raised over $60 million in financing and created $470 million in nominal value. Earlier in his career, Dr. Vygantas helped launch Lucentis^® at Genentech and worked on the healthcare investment banking team at Cowen, Inc. He earned his MD/MBA degree from Georgetown University and completed his residency at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Kauffman Fellow and Mentor at the Center for Venture Education and has served on numerous not-for-profit Boards.

"It is an honor to join the KeifeRx Board at this exciting and transformational juncture for the Company.  I look forward to working with the Board and management to maximize the potential of its TKI portfolio for neurodegenerative and immune diseases," said Dr. Vygantas.

About KeifeRx 
KeifeRx is an emerging clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a portfolio of novel and optimized, low dose, orally-delivered tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) for the treatment of multiple, high-need neurodegenerative and immune diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Lewy Body Dementia. KeifeRx's diverse pipeline of early- and late-stage products leverages mechanisms of action inherent to TKIs which thus far have been underexplored. This includes the ability to penetrate the brain, induce autophagy, and enable the bulk disposal of disease-causing toxic proteins to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Georgetown University owns several issued patents and pending patent applications on the underlying technology that relate to the use of TKIs for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases with Charbel Moussa, MBBS, Ph.D., as an inventor. KeifeRx has an exclusive license of the intellectual property from Georgetown University. For more information on KeifeRx, please visit https://www.keiferx.com.

For more information, please contact:

Tiberend Strategic Advisors, Inc. 
Daniel Kontoh-Boateng (Investors) 
[email protected] 
Rosalyn Christian (Investors) 
[email protected]

Jason Rando (Media) 
[email protected]

SOURCE KeifeRx, LLC