Press Release

REVOLUTION Medicines Names Academic Co-Founder, Michael Fischbach, Ph.D., and Senior Advisor, Eric Gordon, Ph.D.

June 14, 2016

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--()--REVOLUTION Medicines, Inc., a company focused on the discovery and development of innovative drugs inspired by natural products, today announced that noted chemical biologist Michael Fischbach, Ph.D. has joined the company as an academic co-founder. He joins Martin Burke, M.D., Ph.D., who founded the company with Third Rock Ventures, on the company’s scientific advisory board. The company also appointed distinguished medicinal chemist and life sciences entrepreneur Eric Gordon, Ph.D. as a senior advisor and member of the company’s scientific advisory board.

“Since our launch over a year ago, REVOLUTION Medicines has developed significant momentum in harnessing the power of our breakthrough chemical synthesis platform and pursuing our goal of transforming drug discovery using evolution as a source of inspiration,” said Mark A. Goldsmith, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of REVOLUTION Medicines. “Michael and Eric are leading scientists with track records of innovating across the fields of chemical biology and drug discovery, and our company benefits enormously from the guidance of these talented advisors as we execute on our ambitious drug discovery goals on behalf of patients.”

Michael Fischbach, Ph.D. is an associate professor in the department of bioengineering and therapeutic sciences at University of California, San Francisco and a member of the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences. Dr. Fischbach is recipient of numerous awards and grants, and he and his research laboratory are recognized widely for their combined use of genomics and chemistry to identify and characterize small molecules from microbes, with an emphasis on the human microbiome. Previously, he was an independent fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital coordinating a collaborative effort based at the Broad Institute to develop genomics-based approaches to the discovery of small molecules from microbes. Dr. Fischbach is a member of the scientific advisory boards of NGM Biopharmaceuticals and Symbiota, and a member of the Board of Directors of Achaogen.

Eric Gordon, Ph.D. is a consulting professor at Stanford University and authority in the fields of medicinal chemistry and antibiotic and natural product synthesis. He has more than 40 years of pharmaceutical and biotech expertise with a strong track record as a drug discovery executive, biotechnology entrepreneur, and life sciences venture investor. Previously, he was head of medicinal chemistry at Squibb and Bristol Myers Squibb and subsequently he served as vice president of research and director of chemistry at Affymax. Dr. Gordon was scientific co-founder, president and chief scientific officer of Versicor (later Vicuron Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Pfizer in 2005) and he was senior vice president of research at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SNSS). He was also a co-founder of Skyline Ventures. Dr. Gordon has authored more than 200 scientific manuscripts and U.S. patents, and serves on the scientific advisory boards of the multiple foundations and biotechnology companies and the editorial advisory boards for five scientific journals. In 1997, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

About REVOLUTION Medicines

The mission of REVOLUTION Medicines is redesigning evolution’s products to treat serious diseases. The company discovers and develops new drugs by reconfiguring substances that are inherently rich with biological function as a result of natural selection. REVOLUTION Medicines’ innovative product engine is based on the REVEAL™ platform, which uses evolution’s lessons to inform selection of chemical scaffolds, and the REVBLOCKS™ technology, an integrated suite of rapid, agile, and modular synthesis methodologies for using simple chemical “building blocks” to create refined natural product-like structures with optimized pharmacologic and pharmaceutical properties. Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. at the intersection of Silicon Valley and the birthplace of biotechnology, REVOLUTION Medicines is a private company financed by top-tier investor Third Rock Ventures. For more information, please visit www.revolutionmedicines.com.

 

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