RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC (RTP) – February 25, 2014 – Dignify Therapeutics LLC, a Triangle-based drug development company focused on restoring bladder and bowel control to people with spinal injury, spina bifida, and other neurological conditions, announced today the appointment of Mr. Benny Ward to the position of Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board of Directors, effective immediately. .
Mr. Ward has extensive experience serving as an executive in several life science companies. Mr. Ward spent almost 10 years as a member of the executive team of Closure Medical Corp. (Nasdaq: CLSR), a biomaterials company that was acquired by Johnson and Johnson in 2005. Mr. Ward joined Closure prior to its initial public offering and was V.P. of Finance and Chief Financial Officer at the time of the acquisition. From 2006 through 2008, Mr. Ward was a member of the senior management team, serving as V.P. of Finance and Chief Financial Officer, of InnerPulse, Inc., a development stage, venture capital funded, cardiac rhythm management company. Most recently, Mr. Ward served as Executive Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, of BioDelivery Sciences International (Nasdaq: BDSI), a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on pain and addiction medicine. Mr. Ward also serves as a member of the Board of Director of Chesson Labs, Inc., a developer of polymer-based medical devices.
“As an early stage biotech company, we are so fortunate to have attracted someone with as much biomedical business experience as Benny,” commented Dr. Karl Thor, President of Dignify Therapeutics. “We have worked with Benny over the past several months and our senior management team has benefitted from his service as a business and financial advisor since then. Across that time he has proven himself as both a team leader and a self-sacrificing teammate, which I and the other founders consider a critical factor to the success of our previous ventures,” he continued.
“I have really enjoyed working as an advisor with the group at Dignify,” said Mr. Ward. I am very excited to join a team with the enthusiasm and heartfelt desire to improve the quality of life for people with spinal conditions and to provide therapy for a severe unmet medical need that has been neglected by the larger pharmaceutical industry” he continued.
About Dignify Therapeutics LLC
Founded by a team of serial entrepreneurs who are internationally-recognized scientists and clinicians, Dignify Therapeutics’ mission is to provide safe and effective, practical and convenient, “on-demand” pharmaceutical agents to treat bladder and bowel voiding dysfunctions, using a “repositioning” strategy of drug discovery that the team has successfully implemented multiple times over the last 20 years in the fields of urology and gastroenterology. Funding to the Company has been provided by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, an entity primarily funded by the State of North Carolina.
PRESS CONTACT
Dignify Therapeutics
Karl Thor, PhD
P.O. Box 13169 – 2 Davis Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Phone: 919-371-8138
Email: kthor@dignifytherapeutics.com
Website: https://dignifytherapeutics.com
