Cocrystal Pharma, a US biopharmaceutical company that is developing novel small molecules for viral infections and liver diseases, has appointed Douglas Mayers as Chief Medical Officer. The company says this appointment reflects Cocrystal's continued growth as it prepares to advance its HCV, influenza and norovirus programmes.
Mayers is a specialist in infectious diseases and has nearly 27 years of medical and clinical development experience spanning all phases of global clinical research and development and commercialisation. He has spent the past year at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases working with colleagues to discover and develop drugs against the Ebola virus.
Prior to that he was Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President at Idenix Pharmaceuticals, where he led the Infectious Disease programmes from 2007 until the acquisition by Merck in 2014. Before Idenix he was International Head/Vice President of the Virology Therapeutic Area at Boehringer Ingelheim.
Prior to joining the industry, Mayers held numerous academic and research positions.
Cocrystal Pharma has also appointed board member Jeffrey Meckler to the position of Chief Executive. He has been Cocrystal Pharma's Interim CEO since 31 March.
Meckler has more than 25 years of experience in life science companies, including 17 years at Pfizer in a variety of positions. He is currently Chairman of Retrophin, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of drugs for the treatment of catastrophic diseases. He is also on the Board of QLT, an ophthalmic orphan drug company located in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Meckler has also served as Managing Director of The Andra Group, providing consultancy services to the life sciences industry.
