Argenta Discovery

Argenta Discovery Ltd. has made two appointments to its senior management team. Dr. John Montana has been named chief scientific officer and Dr. Chris Moyses has been named chief medical officer. Both will be members of the Argenta Discovery Board. The appointments anticipate the start of clinical trials with Argenta’s portfolio of respiratory therapies in 2007.

Dr. Montana is a pharmaceutical industry executive with more than 20 years experience. He joins the company from Paradigm Therapeutics, where he became chief scientific officer in January 2005 when the company acquired Amedis. In this capacity he played a key role in the successful integration of the two companies and the rationalization of the combined research portfolio. Prior to that he spent three years as chief executive officer of Amedis. Dr. Montana also served as director of drug discovery at Chiroscience and was instrumental in establishing a research strategy that delivered six development compounds. He also played a major role in brokering and managing a series of collaborations with major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Following the merger of Chiroscience and Celltech, he became director of NCE Research, taking responsibility for the company’s small molecule research pipeline.

Prior to joining Argenta, Dr. Moyses was R&D director and executive director at Pharmagene. Previously he served as chief medical officer and development director at Oxford GlycoSciences. As development director he established the development function and built the team that took the Gaucher disease therapy Zavesca from first dose in patients through to FDA and European approvals. He was closely involved in the London Stock Exchange floatation of OGS and a member of the roadshow team. Dr. Moyses is a physician and worked in the National Health Service for seven years before joining the pharmaceutical industry in 1986.

Argenta has also named Dr. Paul Clewlow as senior vice president business development. In this capacity he will be responsible for the growth and development of the company’s leading drug discovery services business. Dr Clewlow joins the company from Pharmaceutical Profiles where he was business development director. Prior to that, he worked for Medeval, the Phase I/IIa CRO, Ultrafine Chemicals and Exxon Chemical.