Richard Miller Awarded 2020 Drug Hunter Award by UC Drug Discovery Consortium
BURLINGAME, Calif., Feb. 19, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Richard A. Miller, M.D., co-founder, president and chief executive officer of Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CRVS), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of precisely targeted oncology therapies with biomarker patient enrichment selection, was awarded with the 2020 Drug Hunter Award on February 11, 2020 by the UC Drug Discovery Consortium in a ceremony held at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). This annual award and lecture series is sponsored by the UC Drug Discovery Consortium, UCSF Innovation Ventures, the Center for Drug Discovery Innovation, and the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati.
The Drug Hunter Award recognizes individuals that have made a significant impact in the drug development space, contributing to bringing new breakthrough drugs to market. Prior award winners include Stephen Kaldor, Ph.D., and Richard Heyman, Ph.D., both serial CEOs and prominent biotech influencers responsible for HIV protease inhibitors and androgen receptor degraders for prostate cancer. Richard A. Miller, M.D. is the 2020 recipient of the award based on his significant impact on commercializing breakthrough medicines, in particular, Rituxan® and Imbruvica®.
Dr. Miller has over 25 years of experience developing successful medicines. Most notably, he played an instrumental role in developing and bringing to market both Rituxan and Imbruvica: highly successful and multi-billion dollar medicines. Rituxan was the first FDA approved monoclonal antibody for cancer receiving approval in 1997. This drug has been administered to millions of patients with lymphomas and autoimmune diseases. Imbruvica is a covalent BTK inhibitor, now used for treatment of several types of B cell lymphomas.
Dr. Miller was co-founder and chief executive officer of Pharmacyclics, where he led the initial discovery and development efforts for Imbruvica. Prior to that, he was a co-founder, Vice President and Director of IDEC (which merged to form Biogen IDEC, now Biogen), where he led research efforts on lymphoma culminating in the development of Rituxan. Throughout his career he has also founded multiple other private and public biotech companies where he held C-Suite roles. He is currently CEO of Corvus Pharmaceuticals, which he co-founded in 2014. Dr. Miller is an adjunct professor of medicine at Stanford University where he continues to serve as an attending physician in the lymphoma clinic.
Following his acceptance of the Drug Hunter Award, Dr. Miller delivered a presentation giving insight into his impressive career dedicated to lymphoma research and drug development. “I have had the good fortune to study one disease really carefully, read all about it, see patients with it and really be totally immersed in it for over 30 years now. That has given me perspective and advantage in doing this kind of work,” said Dr. Miller. A recording of Dr. Miller’s presentation can be found here.
About Corvus Pharmaceuticals
Corvus Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of precisely targeted oncology therapies. Corvus’ lead product candidates are ciforadenant (CPI-444), a small molecule inhibitor of the A2A receptor, and CPI-006, a humanized monoclonal antibody directed against CD73 that exhibits immunomodulatory activity and blockade of adenosine production. These product candidates are being studied in ongoing Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials in patients with a wide range of advanced solid tumors. Ciforadenant is being evaluated in a successive expansion cohort trial examining its activity both as a single agent and in combination with an anti-PD-L1 antibody. CPI-006 is being evaluated in a multicenter Phase 1/1b clinical trial as a single agent, in combination with ciforadenant, and in combination with pembrolizumab. The Company’s third clinical program, CPI-818, an oral, small molecule drug that has been shown to selectively inhibit ITK, is in a multicenter Phase 1/1b clinical trial in patients with several types of T-cell lymphomas. For more information, visit www.corvuspharma.com.
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Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
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LLea@corvuspharma.com
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