– USA, WA – Blaze Bioscience, the Tumor Paint Company®, a biotechnology company focused on guided cancer therapy, announced today that Jan Öhrström, M.D., a biotechnology executive with over 20 years of industry experience, has been appointed to the company’s Board of Directors.
Dr. Öhrström brings to the Board his expertise in developing and commercializing surgical products as well as broad entrepreneurial and operational experience. As Senior Vice President and Head of European Commercial Operations at The Medicines Company, he provided senior leadership to their hospital-focused surgery franchise. Dr. Öhrström was also managing director for ProFibrix B.V., where he held CEO and President positions prior to the acquisition of ProFibrix by The Medicines Company. At ProFibrix, he successfully led the company through several rounds of fundraising and the clinical development of Fibrocaps™, a hemostatic agent indicated for bleeding control during surgery, which is currently under final regulatory review in the U.S. and approved in Europe. Previously, Dr. Öhrström was Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations and Senior Vice President of Development and Chief Medical Officer at ZymoGenetics, Inc., where in addition to leading the development and preparation of the company’s first commercial product launch, he helped take the company public. Dr. Öhrström started his biotechnology career at Novo Nordisk A/S in development and marketing roles after six years of clinical practice in Neurology and Neurosurgery. Dr. Öhrström earned his M.D. from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
“We are very pleased to welcome Jan to our Board at this important time of the company’s growth,” said Heather Franklin, Blaze Bioscience President, CEO, and Executive Chairperson. “His extensive experience—including development of more than one surgical product to commercialization and leadership of a private company through acquisition—will be a valuable asset as we continue to advance BLZ-100 toward commercialization and further develop the guided cancer therapeutics platform.”
“I look forward to contributing to Blaze’s success,” said Dr. Öhrström. “We share the vision of bringing innovations to patients undergoing surgery, and I believe Tumor Paint products, such as BLZ-100, have the potential to significantly impact cancer surgery and help millions of cancer patients.”
About Blaze Bioscience
Blaze Bioscience, Inc. is a privately held biotechnology company focused on guided cancer therapy. Blaze was founded in 2010 by Dr. Jim Olson, a pediatric neuro-oncologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Heather Franklin, a former senior business executive from ZymoGenetics, and is working to develop Tumor Paint™ products and Optide-based guided cancer therapeutics. Surgery is first-line therapy for most solid tumor cancers and Tumor Paint products intend to improve cancer surgery by providing real-time, high-resolution visualization of cancer cells throughout surgery. The ability to see cancer cells in real time and high resolution throughout surgery should enable better detection and more complete and precise surgical removal of cancer—while sparing surrounding normal tissue. In addition to the Tumor Paint platform, Blaze is collaborating with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center to discover and develop guided cancer therapeutics as part of the Optides platform. This program extends the expertise gained in developing the Tumor Paint platform to optimized knottin peptide conjugates for therapeutic and imaging applications.
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