Champions Biotechnology, Inc. Appoints New Board Members and Forms Management Team
01 April 2008 - 11:00PM
PR Newswire (US)
ARLINGTON, Va., April 1, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Champions
Biotechnology, Inc. (OTC:CSBR) (BULLETIN BOARD: CSBR) , a company
engaged in the development of advanced preclinical platforms and
tumor specific data to enhance the value of oncology drugs,
announced today the appointment of new Board of Directors members
and the formation of an experienced management team as it prepares
to expand its operations. Abba David Poliakoff and Ana Stancic were
appointed as new independent directors to the Company's Board,
chaired by Dr. David Sidransky. The Board of Directors also
established an Audit, Nominations and Corporate Governance and
Compensation Committee. The Company anticipates naming additional
independent Board members in the future to properly constitute
these committees as part of its growth initiatives and in
furtherance of its plans to implement a state of the art corporate
governance regime. The Company also formed a new management team.
Douglas D. Burkett, Ph.D. has been appointed to serve as the
Company's President, Manuel Hidalgo M.D., Ph.D., has been named to
serve as the Chief Scientific Officer and Durwood Settles will
serve as the acting Chief Financial Officer. James M. Martell, the
Company's founder and director, has been appointed Chief
Administrative Officer and has relinquished the positions of CEO,
President and CFO. "We are very pleased to have these outstanding
individuals join our Board and management team as we grow our
preclinical platform and the opportunities that we believe it will
create," stated Dr. David Sidransky, Chairman of the Board of
Champions Biotechnology, Inc. "We are grateful to Dr. Manuel
Hidalgo, who has stepped off the Board as a director in order to
head up our scientific efforts as Chief Scientific Officer, and
thank past Board members, Durwood Settles and Michael Tomic for
their dedicated Board service to the Company. I also look forward
to working closely with Dr. Doug Burkett as he leads management to
achieve our goal to become the world leader in preclinical
platforms and tumor specific data." concluded Dr. Sidransky.
Douglas D Burkett, Ph.D. commented, "I have collaborated and worked
with Dr. David Sidransky for nearly a decade and I'm excited about
the opportunity to help implement his vision for Champions to
become one of the world's leading biotech companies. Please review
the Company's new web site at
http://www.championsbiotechnology.com/ for an overview of our
growing business." New Board Members: Abba David Poliakoff is a
member of the law firm of Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger
& Hollander, LLC, in Baltimore, Maryland, Chairman of the
Firm's Business Department, and a Member of the Firm's Electronic
Discovery Practice Group. Mr. Poliakoff received his J.D. degree,
magna cum laude, in 1977 from the University of Baltimore Law
School, where he was an editor of the University of Baltimore Law
Review and Associate Editor of The Forum Law Journal. After law
school, Mr. Poliakoff joined the staff of the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., where he became a senior
attorney in the Division of Corporation Finance. Mr. Poliakoff is
currently a member of the Maryland State Bar Association's Business
Law Section and former Chair of its Committee on Securities.
Formerly he was a member of the Business Regulations Article Review
Committee of the Committee to Revise the Maryland Annotated Code.
He has been listed in Chambers USA, Leading Business Lawyers since
its inception in 2003. Mr. Poliakoff is a member of the Board of
Directors of the Greater Baltimore Technology Council (GBTC) and
Chair of its Legislative Committee. He is a former Chair of the
Maryland Business & Technology Coalition, member of the
Technology Council of Maryland, and member of the MIT Enterprise
Forum. Mr. Poliakoff is currently the Chairman of the Maryland
Israel Development Center, a joint venture between the State of
Israel and the State of Maryland collaborating through the Maryland
Department of Business and Economic Development and the Israeli
Ministry of Industry and Trade. Ana I. Stancic has served since
March, 2008 as Chief Financial Officer of Aureon Laboratories
Incorporated ("Aureon"), an oncology diagnostic company dedicated
to enabling the advancement of predictive and personalized cancer
treatment by performing diagnostic reference laboratory and
clinical research services. Prior to joining Aureon, Ms. Stancic
was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at OMRIX
Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. Before joining OMRIX, Ms. Stancic served
as Senior Vice President, Finance at ImClone Systems, Inc.
("ImClone"), a global biopharmaceutical company committed to
advancing oncology care, where she was responsible for ImClone's
finance department, information technology and internal audit. Ms.
Stancic joined ImClone as Vice President, Controller and Chief
Accounting Officer in 2004. Prior to joining ImClone, she was Vice
President and Controller at Savient Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 2003
to February, 2004. Ms. Stancic was Vice President and Chief
Accounting Officer at Ogden Corporation from 1999 to 2002 and
Regional Chief Financial Officer at OmniCare, Inc. from 1997 to
1999. Ms. Stancic began her career in 1985 at
PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Assurance practice where she had
responsibility for international and national companies in the
pharmaceutical and services industries. Ms. Stancic is a Certified
Public Accountant and holds an M.B.A. degree from Columbia Business
School. New Management Team: President: Douglas D. Burkett, Ph.D.
served as executive consultant to assist the Company in
establishing and executing its strategic and business plan prior to
becoming President. Dr. Burkett served as Chairman, Chief Executive
Officer and President of Zila, Inc. from 2002 to 2007 and led a
strategic transformation of Zila into a cancer detection company.
He led the FDA approval, launch and growth of ViziLite Plus, an
oral cancer screening product, and the establishment of the first
insurance reimbursement for oral cancer screening products in the
United States. Dr. Burkett held several senior positions at Zila
from 1995 to 2002; he was responsible for Zila's technical
operations, its manufacturing subsidiary, its Pharmaceuticals
business and business development. Early in his career he led the
building of a R&D laboratory, pharmaceutical manufacturing
facility, compliance unit and regulatory team that achieved a rare
"no deficiency" FDA pre approval inspection. Dr. Burkett is the
lead inventor in numerous issued and pending patents involving
novel methods and drugs for cancer detection. He is quoted in
leading publications including the Wall Street Journal regarding
his pioneering efforts in early oral cancer detection. Prior to
joining Zila, Dr. Burkett was employed at the Arizona State
University Cancer Research Institute where he collaborated with the
National Cancer Institute in synthesizing and performing studies
for potential cancer treatment drugs. Prior to his tenure at ASU he
researched, developed and manufactured pharmaceutical drugs for a
private pharmaceutical company. Dr. Burkett received a B.S. in
Chemistry from Missouri Western State College in 1987, and a Ph.D.
in Organic Chemistry from Arizona State University in 1994. Chief
Scientific Officer: Manuel Hidalgo, M.D., Ph.D. served as Director
and as Scientific Advisor since June, 2007. Dr. Hidalgo, for the
past five years has been an Associate Professor of Oncology at the
Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins University
School of Medicine. He is also currently the Director of the Centro
Integral Oncologia "Clara Campal" in Madrid, Spain. Dr. Hidalgo is
serving on the Scientific Advisory Boards of private and public
companies, including Systems Medicine, Tau Therapeutics, Targeted
Molecular Diagnostics and Monogram Biosciences. Dr. Hidalgo is
considered a leading researcher in the field of targeted therapies
for the treatment of cancer in patients with solid tumors. Dr.
Hidalgo has published over 140 papers in prestigious cancer
journals as well as numerous chapters in important text books. He
has received numerous awards including an AACR Young Investigator
Award, an NCI-EORTC fellowship and an ASCO Career Development
Award. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of
Clinical Oncology and Clinical Cancer Research and is a Senior
Editor for Molecular Cancer Therapeutics. Dr. Hidalgo has chaired
the AACR and ASCO Program Committee in developmental therapeutics
on numerous occasions and is frequently invited to speak at major
national and international meetings. He chairs the Pancreatic
Cancer Research Team, a nonprofit organization focused on clinical
trials in pancreatic cancer, and is also a member of the NCI
Developmental Therapeutics Study. Dr. Hidalgo is one of the
inventor's of the BPU sulfur analog compounds that the Company
acquired in February 2007. Chief Administrative Officer: James M.
Martell founded the Company in 1985 as a small merger and
acquisition public company under the name "International Group,
Inc.," changed in 1986 to "Champions Sports, Inc." Since then he
has served in various capacities as Chairman, President and CEO
until 2007 when the Company changed its business direction to focus
on biotechnology. Mr. Martell has served as President and CEO of
Champions Biotechnology until March, 2008. Since 2004, he has
worked and collaborated with Dr. Sidransky in the development of
personalized oncology information panels after his close friend was
diagnosed with cancer. Mr. Martell currently administers and
oversees all of Champions medical information panels. He was a
partner from 1983 to 1987 in Tomar Associates, a consulting company
specializing in European-American joint ventures, venture capital
financing, technology transfer, and corporate finance. From 1981 to
1983, Mr. Martell was a partner in International Group, a company
involved in promoting national and international business
development. He held various administrative positions from 1973 to
1981 with the U.S. Department of Energy. Mr. Martell received a
Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry in 1968 and Master of
Science degree in Geochemistry in 1973, from George Washington
University. Chief Financial Officer: Durwood C. Settles served as a
Director of the Company from March, 2001 until March, 2008 and has
served as Treasurer since June, 2007. Mr. Settles is a Certified
Public Accountant in individual practice since 1983. From 1973 to
1982, Mr. Settles was Manager of Special Projects and served on the
audit staff with Coopers & Lybrand in Washington, D.C. During
the period 1974 to 1986, Mr. Settles was Treasurer or Controller of
various national, state, and congressional political campaign
organizations. From 1964 to 1973, Mr. Settles was an owner and
executive of a private manufacturing and marketing business after
serving two years as a Group Pension Management Assistant and
Computer Files Service Supervisor with the Mutual of New York Life
Insurance Company (MONY) in New York. Mr. Settles received a
Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics in 1964 from Davidson College
and completed accounting studies in 1973 at George Washington
University. About Champions Biotechnology, Inc. Champions
Biotechnology, Inc. is engaged in the development of advanced
preclinical platforms and predictive tumor specific data to enhance
and accelerate the value of oncology drugs. Our Preclinical
Platform is a novel approach based upon the implantation of primary
human tumors in immune deficient mice followed by propagation of
the resulting xenografts (Biomerk Tumorgrafts(TM)) in a manner that
preserves the biological characteristics of the original human
tumor. The Company believes that these Tumorgrafts closely reflect
human cancer biology and their response to drugs is more predictive
of clinical outcomes in cancer patients. We leverage our
preclinical platform to evaluate drug candidates and to develop a
portfolio of novel therapeutic candidates through pre-clinical
trials. As drugs progress through this early stage of development,
the Company plans to sell, partner or license them to
pharmaceutical and/or biotechnology companies, as appropriate. The
Company also offers its predictive preclinical platform and tumor
specific data to physicians for personalized patient care. In the
course of this process, this permits us to evaluate oncology drugs
for companies by using models that integrate prognostic testing
with biomarker discovery. Champions Biotechnology is dedicated to
enhancing preclinical development tools, accelerating development
and valuation of oncology drugs, and advancing personalized
treatment with a goal to improve the lives of cancer patients
globally. This press release contains "forward-looking statements"
(within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Act of
1995) that inherently involve risk and uncertainties. Champions
Biotechnology generally uses words such as "believe," "may,"
"could," "will," "intend," "expect," "anticipate," "plan," and
similar expressions to identify forward-looking statements. One
should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking
statements. The Company's actual results could differ materially
from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements for many
unforeseen factors. See Champions Biotechnology's Form 10-KSB for
the fiscal year ended April 30, 2007 for a discussion of such
risks, uncertainties and other factors. Although the Company
believes the expectations reflected in the forward-looking
statements are reasonable, they relate only to events as of the
date on which the statements are made, and Champions
Biotechnology's future results, levels of activity, performance or
achievements may not meet these expectations. The Company does not
intend to update any of the forward-looking statements after the
date of this press release to conform these statements to actual
results or to changes in Champions Biotechnology's expectations,
except as required by law. CHAMPIONS BIOTECHNOLOGY, INC. web site:
http://www.championsbiotechnology.com/ DATASOURCE: Champions
Biotechnology, Inc. CONTACT: James Martell of Champions
Biotechnology, Inc., +1-703-526-0400 Web site:
http://www.championsbiotechnology.com/
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