San Diego, Ca., USA - November 7, 2012, San Diego, Ca., USA - Apricus Biosciences, Inc., a pharmaceutical company, announced that Bassam Damaj has resigned as a director, president, and CEO and that Steve Martin has been appointed interim chief executive officer, effective immediately.
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Dr. Damaj was appointed to serve as President and Chief Executive Officer and as a member of the Board in December 2009 and was elected as Chairman of the Board in October 2010. Dr. Damaj is the co-founder and former Chief Scientific Officer of Bio-Quant, and served in that capacity since its inception in 1999. Prior to Bio-Quant, Dr. Damaj served as President & Chief Executive Officer of BioSignature Diagnostics, Inc. He also served as the Group Leader for the Office of New Target Intelligence and a Group Leader for immunological and inflammatory disease programs at Tanabe Research Laboratories, U.S.A., Inc.
Previous appointments included Pharmacopeia Inc., a New Jersey based company where Dr. Damaj served as a senior scientist and a member of the senior staff board of the drug discovery department. He was also a visiting scientist at Genentech, Inc., Pfizer Inc. and the NIH (NIAID). Dr. Damaj is the founder of Celltek Biotechnology, Mina Holdings, BioSignature Diagnostics and R&D Healthcare Inc. He holds numerous patents in this field and authored numerous peer reviewed scientific publications, and is the author of the Immunological Reagents and Solutions reference book.
Dr. Damaj served on several scientific advisory boards of biopharmaceuticals including Celltek, Virocell and Microislet, Inc. He is the holder of the U.S. Congress Award for the development of the first Anthrax Diagnostic Blood Test for the United States in 2003. He also represented the State of California on the Congressional Scientific Liaison Committee in 2002. Dr. Damaj holds a Ph.D. in Immunology/Microbiology, a postdoctoral fellowship in Molecular Oncology and an MBA in Healthcare. He has been involved with over seven drug candidates currently in clinical trials for a variety of diseases.
Mr. Martin has served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Apricus Bio since June 2011. He has more than 25 years of experience in leadership roles with significant expertise in growing public companies in a variety of industries, including life sciences. Prior to joining Apricus Bio, Mr. Martin was Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of BakBone Software, where he also served as interim CEO for a ten month period. ■