Anthera Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ANTH) has announced that the current Chief Medical Officer, Colin Hislop, would be resigning as of April 1, 2016. He would be succeeded by James Pennington, who would serve as the interim CMO for the company. Anthera is a pharmaceutical company, still in the clinical stages of its product development, but generates some revenues through licensing agreements. The company focuses on developing drugs focused on autoimmune diseases.
Anthera currently has two drugs, blisibimod, for treating lupus and Sollpura, for use in pancreatic enzyme replacement therapy. However, both drugs are still in the clinical stages of development and had advanced significantly under Hislop, into the late-clinical stage. The COO at Anthera, Craig Thompson, thanked Hislop for his contributions at the company. He further lauded the progress of Anthera’s drug development programs, under Hislop.
Regarding the appointment of James, the COO stated that he has a long history of working at the company and is familiar with the clinical programs. Added to this, James also has experience and success with regulatory and commercialization programs. As such, he would make an ideal candidate for achieving the milestones set by Anthera for 2016. The new CMO had joined the company in 2007, as CMO and EVP, but had transitioned to a Senior Clinical fellow in 2010. Prior to 2007, he was CMO at CoTherix, where has was successful in gaining approval for Ventavis.
ANTH has had several ups and downs during 2015, in the market. This is mainly due to the lack of a revenue generating product in the market. However, investors expect the company to gain approval for at least one of its products soon. During FY2015, Anthera generated revenue of $1.3 million, through licensing agreements alone. However, the company expects to generate operational cash flow, through equity offerings in 2016.
Anthera Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ANTH) experienced a trade volume of 993,876 during the March 7 trading session, to reach a close at $4.27, after gaining 13.87%.
