Egalet Corporation of Wayne recently announced two financial and pharmaceutical professionals have joined its board of directors as it prepares to market two new pain medications.
Timothy P. Walbert,They are Timothy P. Walbert, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Horizon Pharma; and Greg Weaver, chief financial officer of Fibrocell Science, Inc. based in Exton. Weaver joined in conjunction with the listing of the company’s common stock on Nasdaq.
“Both Tim, with his strong track-record of developing and commercializing pain products, and Greg, with extensive biotechnology financial experience, will be of great value in our quest to bring safe and effective pain medicines with abuse-deterrent properties to patients, ” said Bob Radie, president and chief executive officer of Egalet.
Egalet has developed a pipeline of clinical-stage, opioid-based product candidates in tablet form that are specifically designed to deter abuse by physical and chemical manipulation, while also providing tailored release of the active pharmaceutical ingredient. Its lead product candidate, Egalet-001, is an abuse-deterrent, extended-release, oral morphine formulation in development for the treatment of moderate to severe pain.
There are currently no commercially available abuse-deterrent formulations of morphine, and if approved, Egalet believ
es that Egalet-001 would fill a significant unmet need in the marketplace. The company’s second product candidate, Egalet-002, is an abuse-deterrent, extended-release, oral oxycodone formulation in development for the treatment of moderate to severe pain.
“With our new team members and public financing in place, we are well positioned to advance our clinical programs for our late-stage product candidates, Egalet-001 and Egalet-002, in development for the treatment of moderate to severe pain,” Radie said in a news release.
Both Egalet and Horizon Pharma are specialty pharmaceutical companies. Egalet focuses on proprietary, abuse-deterrent pain medications Horizon Pharma targets unmet therapeutic needs in arthritis, pain and inflammatory diseases.
Walbert is associated with the successful marketing of HUMIRA and CELEBREX for treating rheumatoid arthritis.
