STOCKHOLM, April 6, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Calliditas Therapeutics AB (publ) ("Calliditas") today announced that Dr. Richard Philipson has been appointed as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) of Calliditas and will be a member of the Management Team.

Richard Philipson is a physician with 24 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Having worked in both large pharmaceutical companies and smaller biotechs, he has extensive experience in rare diseases, having brought several products from early development to the market. 

Prior to joining Calliditas, Richard worked as CMO with the UK-based biotech company Trizell. In this capacity, he led the Adstiladrin® phase 3 clinical program and Biologics License Application in non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, submitted to the FDA in September 2019. Before Trizell, he worked for Takeda as an Executive Medical Director, working with clinical development projects both within rare diseases and non-rare diseases. In this role, he was also the clinical lead on several partnering activities with external biotech companies and investment companies.

Previously, he spent 16 years at GlaxoSmithKline, where he held a number of senior positions, including Disease Area Head and Acting Chief Medical Officer for the Rare Diseases Unit. He was also responsible for building a portfolio of development projects and commercial products across a broad range of diseases (immuno-Inflammation, bone & joint disease, dermatology and ophthalmology). Further to this, he was responsible for the building of external alliances and academic collaborations.

Before joining the industry, Richard worked as a physician in several clinical positions with various patient populations, including patients with IgA nephropathy.

His postgraduate qualifications include Membership of the Royal College of Physicians, London; Membership of the Royal College of General Practitioners, London; Fellowship of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, London; MB MS, Middlesex Hospital Medical School; and a BSc in Biomedical Sciences at London University.

"We are extremely pleased to add Richard to our management team. With his long experience and excellent track record, Richard will be instrumental in shaping Calliditas' future clinical development strategy. I am excited to work with him to further develop the existing medical platform and network to ensure the continued success of Nefecon and other pipeline development activities," said Renée Aguiar-Lucander, Chief Executive Officer.

Richard Philipson will take up the position in early July and Krassimir Mitchev will at this time resume his position as Head of Medical Affairs at Calliditas.

The information was sent for publication, through the agency of the contact persons set out above, on April 6, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. CET.

About Calliditas

Calliditas Therapeutics is a specialty pharmaceutical company based in Stockholm, Sweden. It is focused on developing high quality pharmaceutical products for patients with a significant unmet medical need in niche indications, in which the Company can partially or completely participate in the commercialization efforts. The Company is focused on the development and commercialization of the product candidate Nefecon, a unique two step formulation optimized to combine a time lag effect with a concentrated release of the active substance budesonide, within a designated target area. This patented, locally acting formulation is intended for treatment of patients with the inflammatory renal disease IgA nephropathy (IgAN). Calliditas Therapeutics is running a global Phase 3 study within IgAN and aims to commercialize Nefecon in the US. The company is listed on Nasdaq Stockholm (ticker: CALTX). Visit www.calliditas.com for further information.

For further information, please contact:
Renée Aguiar-Lucander, CEO, Calliditas
Email: renee.lucander@calliditas.com
Telephone: +46-722-52-10-06

Mikael Widell, Head of Communications
Email: mikael.widell@calliditas.com
Telephone: +46-703-11-99-60

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

https://news.cision.com/calliditas-therapeutics/r/calliditas-appoints-new-chief-medical-officer,c3081894

The following files are available for download:

SOURCE Calliditas Therapeutics