Kezar Life Sciences Strengthens Management Team with the Appointments of Niti Goel, MD, as Chief Medical Officer and Marc Belsky as Chief Financial Officer

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., May 1, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Kezar Life Sciences, a private, clinical-stage biotechnology company discovering and developing novel small molecule therapeutics, today announced the appointments of Niti Goel, MD, as Chief Medical Officer and Marc Belsky as Chief Financial Officer. Dr. Goel will be responsible for Kezar's overall regulatory, clinical development and medical affairs activities, and Mr. Belsky will head the finance and administrative functions of the Company.

"We are delighted to welcome Niti and Marc to the team," said John Fowler, Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kezar Life Sciences. "Niti is a gifted clinician whose unique background, including in academia and full-phase drug development leading to commercialization, will be a tremendous asset to Kezar. Similarly, Marc's proven experience in scaling biotechnology companies will be critical as we further expand the company to support our advancing R&D pipeline. I look forward to working in close partnership with both Niti and Marc, and know they share our passion for delivering novel therapies to patients with unmet needs across the autoimmune disease landscape."

Prior to joining Kezar, Dr. Goel was Vice President of Strategic Drug Development at IQVIA, where she focused on the design and implementation of clinical trials, as well as development and commercialization planning for molecules in autoimmunity and autoinflammation.  Prior to IQVIA, Dr. Goel served in Clinical Science and Medical Affairs roles at Array BioPharma, UCB Pharma, and Procter & Gamble, focusing on the development of both small molecules and biologics in the rheumatology/immunology area.  After completing her postgraduate training, she spent more than 10 years with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston in the Division of Rheumatology.  Dr. Goel received her MD, summa cum laude, from Jefferson Medical College and completed her training in Internal Medicine and Rheumatology at Duke University Medical Center. She serves as an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine at Duke and continues to see patients and train residents and rheumatology fellows.

"I am thrilled to join the Kezar leadership team and look forward to helping develop effective new medicines for hard-to-treat inflammatory diseases," said Dr. Goel. "I am personally very excited by the promise of selective immunoproteasome inhibitors, and look forward to exploring their potential in current and upcoming clinical trials."

Most recently, Mr. Belsky served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Five Prime Therapeutics, where he led the finance function and oversaw a myriad of business, operational and administrative initiatives.  Prior to Five Prime, Mr. Belsky was Chief Accounting Officer of Cell Genesys, and has held multiple other Chief Financial Officer and finance-related positions.  He began his career as an auditor at Coopers & Lybrand.  Mr. Belsky is a CPA, and holds a BS in Accounting from Wayne State University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

"I am excited to join the accomplished leadership team at Kezar and look forward to supporting future development efforts for our therapeutic pipeline," said Mr. Belsky.

About Kezar Life Sciences

Based in South San Francisco, Kezar Life Sciences is a privately-held, clinical stage company discovering and developing novel small molecule therapeutics to treat unmet needs in autoimmunity and cancer. Kezar's lead product candidate, KZR-616, a first-in-class selective immunoproteasome inhibitor, has completed testing in healthy volunteers and is now enrolling a Phase 1b/2 clinical trial in lupus and lupus nephritis. In addition, Kezar is also leveraging its protein secretion pathway platform to discover and develop small molecule therapies targeting cancer and immuno-oncology. For more information, please visit www.kezarlifesciences.com.   

CONTACTS:

For investors:  

Alex Gray, Burns McClellan, Inc., on behalf of Kezar Life Sciences

212-213-0006

[email protected]

or

Michael Wolfe, Director of Finance & Operations at Kezar Life Sciences

[email protected]

SOURCE Kezar Life Sciences

Related Links

http://www.kezarlifesciences.com