Vivreon Biosciences Announces Hiring of Chief Scientific Officer

SAN DIEGO - Aug. 9, 2017 - PRLog -- Vivreon Biosciences, LLC announces the hiring of industry veteran John T. Ransom, Ph.D., as its new Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Ransom will be in charge of leading Vivreon's drug development programs in ulcerative colitis, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease, all three of which target the Calcium Release Activated Calcium (CRAC) channel.

"The hiring comes at a critical time for Vivreon, as we are rapidly progressing all of our drug development projects," said Andrew Newman, Ph.D., Vivreon Biosciences Chief Operating Officer. "Dr. Ransom is a great fit for this position as he has a wealth of experience in drug development and has been a successful entrepreneur prior to joining Vivreon," he added.

For the previous seven years, Dr. Ransom served as the Vice President of Research and Development and Head of Emerging Technologies at BioLegend, Inc, a growing and privately held manufacturer of high quality biological research reagents. Prior to joining BioLegend, he was a co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, along with William D. Huse, M.D., of Advanced Molecular Design, Inc., a platform discovery company with allosteric modulators of nicotinic cholinergic receptors as lead candidates. Earlier, he served as Vice President of Research and Development for Cytori Therapeutics and for Novasite Pharmaceuticals. At Novasite he received $3.8M in RO1 and SBIR grants from the NIH and led the development of a novel screening technology platform capable of quickly discovering allosteric modulators as drug candidates for GPCR targets.

"From a scientific point of view, Dr. Ransom is a perfect fit," said Milton Greenberg, Ph.D., President of Vivreon Biosciences. "He is one of the pioneers of CRAC channel drug discovery and development."

Dr. Ransom began his drug discovery and development career at Syntex, where he rose to Senior Scientist with a focus on inflammation, autoimmunity and new target discovery. There he determined the mechanism of action of Leflunomide as an inhibitor of pyrimidine biosynthesis, successfully led efforts to develop a more potent and safer alternative to Leflunomide, and described the first selective CRAC channel inhibitors in 1995.

"I'm very excited about this opportunity," said Dr. Ransom. He added, "I believe in this team's capabilities and their passion for finding cures for very difficult to treat diseases."

Vivreon Biosciences, LLC was founded in 2014 in San Diego, CA. Vivreon is developing a number of oral immune therapeutics for the treatment of various inflammatory diseases. For more information, please visit http://www.vivreonbiosciences.com.