Jonathan Fox leaves AstraZeneca for MyoKardia

MyoKardia has appointed former VP, clinical development at AstraZeneca Jonathan Fox to chief medical officer.

In his new role, Dr Fox will lead the development of the US biopharma's pipeline of small molecule therapeutics that focus on the treatment of genetic cardiovascular disease.

It's an area that Dr Fox has great experience, having served as senior director, clinical cardiovascular research at Merck & Co and director of clinical pharmacology at SmithKline Beecham, in addition to his time at AstraZeneca.

On top of this industry experience, Dr Fox has been a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Medicine for the past two decade.

He also served for four years as the industry representative to the FDA's Cardiovascular and renal Drug Products Advisory Committee.

Commenting on his appointment, he highlighted MyoKardia's potential in treating genetic heart disease.

“MyoKardia's genetically targeted approach and cutting-edge platform has the potential to fundamentally change the lives of patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and dilated cardiomyopathy,” he said.

“By translating the groundbreaking science of the founding investigators into effective, disease modifying treatments, we may ultimately transform the future of treating cardiovascular disease.”