AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Appoints Howard B. Rosen as Interim Chief Executive Officer, Effective April 1, 2015
March 20, 2015 at 07:00 pm
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AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced the appointment of Howard B. Rosen as interim Chief Executive Officer of AcelRx, effective April 1, 2015. Mr. Rosen is a technically trained executive with over 25 years of success growing start-up and mid-size biopharmaceutical companies. Mr. Rosen previously held senior-level general management positions and functional roles in strategy, marketing, finance, business development, and research and development at Gilead Sciences and ALZA Corporation.
Mr. Rosen has served on the Board of Directors of AcelRx since 2008 and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Alcobra and several private biopharmaceutical companies. In addition to the appointment of Mr. Rosen, AcelRx has restructured its work force as part of a plan to reduce operating costs and focus the company's financial and development resources on working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to seek marketing approval for Zalviso, as well as to continue the development of ARX-04. This restructuring will reduce the Company's workforce by 19 employees, or approximately 36% of its employee work force, and primarily impacts the commercial team and field-based medical personnel, who were hired in preparation for a potential commercial launch of Zalviso.
Talphera, Inc., formerly AcelRx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is a specialty pharmaceutical company. The Company is focused on the development and commercialization of therapies for use in medically supervised settings. The Company's nafamostat product candidates include Niyad and LTX-608. Niyad is focused on developing regional anticoagulants for injection into the extracorporeal circuit, such as the dialysis circuit during continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) for acute kidney injury (AKI) patients in the hospital, and for chronic kidney disease patients undergoing intermittent hemodialysis (IHD) in dialysis centers. LTX-608 is nafamostat formulation for direct intravenous (IV) infusion that shall be investigated and developed as a potential anti-viral for the treatment of COVID, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), and acute pancreatitis. The Company is also engaged in developing two pre-filled syringes, namely Fedsyra and PFS-02.