SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.– Circle Pharma, a company focused on developing macrocycle therapeutics against targets previously considered to be undruggable, has appointed Paul Park, MBA, as its Chief Business Officer. Mr. Park has extensive business development experience in life sciences in prior roles including vice president of business development at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, head of strategic partnerships at Aetion and various roles in international licensing, strategy and corporate development at Amgen. He joins the leadership team at Circle as the company is advancing its lead program, an orally bioavailable Cyclin A inhibitor, towards the clinic and applying its macrocycle platform to expand its pipeline which includes other targeted oncology therapeutics.
“Paul has a strong record of leading deals including large pharma partnerships, major M&A transactions, licensing and financings, as well as strategic corporate development experience,” noted David J. Earp, JD, PhD, Circle’s president and CEO. “We’re delighted to welcome him at an exciting time: our lead program is moving towards the clinic in a target space – cyclins and cyclin dependent kinases – that is generating a lot of interest, and we are growing our pipeline.”
“I’ve been impressed by the capabilities of Circle’s macrocycle platform to address key challenges that have stymied macrocycle drug developers, including achieving robust cell permeability and oral bioavailability, as exemplified by the company’s Cyclin A program,” noted Mr. Park. “I am looking forward to helping the Circle team to harness the platform against other challenging targets that will hopefully yield new treatment options for patients with unmet medical needs.”
Mr. Park led the Ionis team that orchestrated numerous significant transactions including most recently the co-development and co-commercialization deal with AstraZeneca for eplontersen, the spin-out of Ionis’ oncology portfolio to Flamingo Therapeutics, and in-licensing transactions with Bicycle Therapeutics and Genuity Sciences. Earlier in his career at Amgen he played key roles in the acquisitions of Tularik and Immunex. He obtained an AB in health and society from Brown University and an MBA in healthcare management from The Wharton School.
