Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Appoints Paul B. Bennett, Ph.D., as Vice President, Discovery
PASADENA, CA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--September 20, 2004--Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., an
ion channel drug discovery company, announced today that Dr. Paul B. Bennett, Jr., formerly of
Merck Research Laboratories (NYSE: MRK), has joined Neurion in the newly created position of
Vice President, Discovery. In this capacity, Dr. Bennett will oversee the Company’s internal drug
discovery efforts, as well as its corporate research alliances, academic collaborations and
federally-funded grant work.
Dr. Bennett is a pharmacologist and ion channel expert, with extensive academic and industry
experience in the fields of central nervous system and cardiovascular drug research and
development. He was previously Senior Director for Ion Channel Research and Molecular
Pharmacology at Merck’s research facility in West Point, Pennsylvania.
"I am pleased that Paul Bennett has joined Neurion. He will bring to the Company a tremendous
base of experience in determining the structural basis for subtype-selective ion channel
modulation, which is a major focus of our drug discovery programs," said William L. Robbins,
Chairman, President and CEO. "Paul brings to Neurion the multi-disciplinary thinking, depth of
scientific understanding and pharmaceutical industry knowledge that we need to take our R&D
programs to the next level," said Mr. Robbins.
Dr. Bennett’s prior work has included novel drug target discovery, new lead identification and
bioinformatics. He has led pre-clinical and early drug development projects for cardiovascular
and neurological disorders, including a novel treatment for atrial arrhythmias, the development of
novel antihypertensive agents, and drugs for the treatment of chronic pain. He has been
responsible for developing a number of new ion channel assays for the screening and counterscreening of pre-clinical drug candidates. He has also provided electrophysiology support and expertise for drug discovery, safety and high throughput technologies.
Dr. Bennett is a noted authority on the hERG potassium ion channel, a cardiac channel which is
the subject of an ongoing corporate collaboration between Neurion and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE),
and is the subject of intense research throughout the pharmaceutical industry. He has authored
over 75 original research articles, reviews and book chapters including papers published in
Nature, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Circulation Research, Neuron and the
Journal of the National Academy of Sciences. He has served on editorial boards including
Circulation Research and The Journal of Clinical Investigation, and has served in a peer
review capacity for numerous agencies including membership on National Institutes of Health peer review
study sections. He also has received numerous awards and grants in his scientific career including an
Established Investigatorship from the American Heart Association and funding from the National Institutes of Health.
Prior to Neurion and Merck, Dr. Bennett was a tenured Associate Professor of Pharmacology and
Medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, in Nashville, Tennessee, where he originally
began his academic career in the mid-1980s. He completed post-doctoral training in
pharmacology at Vanderbilt and in physiology and biophysics at the University of Rochester
School of Medicine, in New York. Dr. Bennett earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the
University of Arkansas.
A native of Arkansas, Dr. Bennett resided most recently in Pennsylvania, and is relocating to
Southern California, where Neurion is located.
About Neurion
Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (www.neurionpharma.com) is a
privately held, development-stage pharmaceutical company that is focused on the discovery of novel
drugs for central nervous system (CNS) diseases and other disorders associated with ion channels.
The Company uses its proprietary discovery platform technology to understand the structural basis of drug-ion
channel interactions, and to design safer and more effective drugs by exploiting this knowledge.
