Nine Square Therapeutics Appoints John Hood to Board of Directors

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Sept. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Nine Square Therapeutics, a biotechnology company applying computational chemistry and machine-learning enabled cell profiling to discover and develop novel small-molecule therapeutics for life-threatening neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease and ALS, announced today that John Hood, Ph.D., has joined the company's Board of Directors.

"We are very excited to welcome John to the Nine Square team. Over the past two decades, John has founded or co-founded multiple successful biotech companies and led them through various stages of growth, from early discovery to commercial stage and from start-up to M&A. In addition, John is an outstanding scientist and drug developer," said Nine Square Therapeutics CEO Robert Paul, M.D. "We are thrilled that he will lend his expert counsel to Nine Square at a time when we are progressing multiple novel pipeline candidates through development."

Dr. Hood is a veteran of the California life science community who has founded and led several successful biotechnology companies in his 20-year career. He is currently Founder, CEO and Executive Chairman of Endeavor Biomedicines, a company funded in 2021 to develop novel therapeutics for oncology and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Prior to that, John was the Founder and CEO of Impact Biomedicines (now owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb), the developer of fedratinib, which has subsequently been approved worldwide for the treatment of myelofibrosis. He began his career as Director of Research at TargeGen in 2001, where he co-discovered fedratinib and led a team identifying small molecule therapeutics for the treatment of cancer and eye disease. John is an inventor on 100+ patents and the author of 50+ scientific articles. He received his Ph.D. in medical physiology and a B.S. in biochemistry from Texas A&M University.

"I am delighted to join the Nine Square team as the company advances a pipeline of innovative therapeutics to address high unmet medical needs," said Dr. Hood. "Nine Square's therapeutic approach has the potential to treat a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases, including movement disorders and rare diseases. I look forward to working with the team to help create a new generation of drugs to improve the lives of patients and their families."

Nine Square Therapeutics is discovering novel small-molecule therapeutics for life-threatening neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson's disease and ALS. Founded by life sciences venture capital firm ATP (Apple Tree Partners) and leading scientists at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), Nine Square has the capabilities and depth in computational science to drive drug discovery at an accelerated pace and provide multiple approaches to high value targets, to bring hope and help to people living with debilitating conditions. For more information, visit https://www.ninesquaretx.com/.

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SOURCE Nine Square Therapeutics