Heptares Augments Business Development Capabilities in Japan and Other Asian Territories

WELWYN GARDEN CITY, England and BOSTON, May 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Heptares Therapeutics, the leading GPCR drug discovery and development company, is pleased to announce that it has engaged Mr Akira Usui as a Consultant to augment the Company's business development capabilities in Japan and other Asian territories.

Mr Usui has more than 15 years of experience in business development, licensing and alliance management in the pharmaceutical industry including senior roles at Perlegen Sciences, Inc., Roche Pharma (Japan), Nippon Roche and Tanabe Seiyaku Co. Ltd. Mr Usui is President of Ray Life Sciences Inc., which he established in 2007 to provide business and corporate development consulting services to pharma and biotech companies, universities and venture capital firms with a specific focus on the Japanese market.

Barry Kenny, Heptares' Chief Business Officer, said: "Akira has an exceptional depth of experience in business development and an impressive track record in implementing agreements across multiple international territories. In addition to our existing partnership with Takeda, we are developing significant interest from pharmaceutical companies in Japan in what Heptares' technology can offer. We look forward to working with Akira, who will provide additional support in this region, to manage and advance these multiple new business opportunities for our unique GPCR-focused drug discovery and development capabilities."  

Mr Usui added: "Heptares has established itself as the leader in GPCR-focused drug discovery and has achieved significant milestones both with its partners and in building its own pipeline of drug candidates. Its platform and approach has the potential to unlock the GPCR space to drug discovery and enable the development of new and better targeted medicines for diseases with few effective treatments. I am delighted to work with the Company as it seeks to increase its business development activities in Japan and Asia."

About Heptares Therapeutics

Heptares creates new medicines targeting clinically important, yet historically challenging, GPCRs (G protein-coupled receptors), a superfamily of drug receptors linked to a wide range of human diseases. Leveraging our advanced structure-based drug design technology platform, we have built an exciting discovery and development pipeline of novel drug candidates, which have the potential to transform the treatment of serious diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, migraine and diabetes. Our pharmaceutical partners include Shire, Cubist, Takeda, MorphoSys, AstraZeneca and MedImmune, and we are backed by MVM Life Science Partners, Clarus Ventures, Novartis Venture Fund and Takeda Ventures. To learn more about Heptares, please visit http://www.heptares.com.