Belgium biotech company Cardio3 BioSciences has appointed Dr Alexander Milstein as vice president of clinical development.
He joins from Cytori Therapeutics, a US-based regenerative medicine company where he also served as vice president of clinical development.
Prior to that, he held senior and management positions at Medtronic Corporation, Guidant Corporation and Acusphere, having started his clinical development career as a research fellow with Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital
Mont Saint Guibert-based Cardio3 BioSciences concentrates on the discovery and development of regenerative and protective therapies to treat cardiac diseases.
Commenting on his appointment Dr Milstein said: “Cardio3 BioSciences’ pipeline holds great therapeutic potential for significant, currently unmet medical needs.
“I am pleased and excited to have the opportunity to join Cardio3 BioSciences and lead the execution of an effective and successful clinical development programme for C3BS-CQR-1 which will enter phase III in 2012, as well as advancing the company’s other products into clinical development.”
Cardio3 BioSciences’ lead product candidate C3BS-CQR-1 is being developed for heart failure indication.
It consists of a patient’s cells harvested from their own bone marrow and engineered to become new heart muscle cells that behave identically to those lost to heart disease.
Cardio3 BioSciences says the process, known as Cardiopoiesis, means the cells do not carry the risk of rejection or infection because they are injected into the same patient they were obtained from and carefully inspected before re-injection.