HR Notices From October 4
Lycera Appoints New President, CEO: Ann Arbor-based pharma startup Lycera Corp. Tuesday announced that Kathleen M. Metters, former senior vice president and head of worldwide basic research at Merck, has been named president and CEO and a member of the board of directors. Metters has a proven track record of global leadership in the pharmaceutical industry and brings to Lycera more than 25 years of pharmaceutical discovery and development experience. Prior to joining Lycera, Metters spent more than 20 years at Merck where she held multiple leadership roles of increasing responsibility. Most recently, she served as senior vice president of external discovery and preclinical sciences, where she was responsible for expanding the company's global scientific network to the greater research community. Prior to this role, Metters served as Merck's senior vice president and head of worldwide basic research. In this position, she managed all research activities at major sites around the globe, across all therapeutic modalities and all therapeutic areas. Earlier in her career at Merck Frosst Canada Inc., Metters' research focused on the arachidonic acid cascade, which resulted in the discovery of Singulair and Tredaptive. She holds a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the University of Manchester Institute for Science and Technology, and received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Imperial College of Science and Technology, London. Metters completed her post-doctoral training at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France, and at the Clinical Research Institute of Montréal, Canada. Lycera is focused on the discovery and development of selective, small-molecule immunomodulators for the treatment of patients with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease. Lycera is developing drug candidates that target two novel therapeutic pathways and have the potential for first-in-class oral efficacy without the adverse effects of current standard-of-care antiproliferative and immunosuppressive agents. More at www.lycera.com.
