PALO ALTO, Calif., July 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alexza Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced today that Nasrat Hakim has joined the company as Vice President, Quality. He will have primary responsibilities in the development and execution of quality program strategies for Alexza's manufacturing operations and preclinical / clinical product candidates. Mr. Hakim was most recently Corporate Vice President of Quality and Compliance for Actavis / Alpharma Inc., and previously was Global Vice President, Compliance for Alpharma, where he was employed from 2004 to 2007. He has also served as Executive Director, Corporate Compliance and Technical Projects for Watson Pharmaceuticals and Executive Director, Site Head of Quality and Compliance at TheraTech, Inc. Watson Pharmaceuticals acquired TheraTech in 1999. Mr. Hakim holds both a JD and BS in Law from Saratoga University in San Jose, California, a Masters degree (LLM) in Law from St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida, and Bachelors and Masters degrees in Chemistry from California State University at Sacramento.
"We are very pleased to welcome Nasrat to Alexza and as a member of our Executive Team," said Thomas B. King, Alexza President and CEO. "The continued growth of our clinical and preclinical programs at Alexza requires us to add integrated GLP and GCP quality systems and procedures to our existing GMP procedures. Nasrat brings a wealth of global pharmaceutical experience to Alexza and we look forward to his contributions to our future growth and development."
Alexza is an emerging pharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of novel, proprietary products for the treatment of acute and intermittent conditions. The Company's technology, the Staccato(R) system, vaporizes unformulated drug to form a condensation aerosol that allows rapid systemic drug delivery through deep lung inhalation. The drug is quickly absorbed through the lungs into the bloodstream, providing speed of therapeutic onset that is comparable to intravenous administration, but with greater ease, patient comfort and convenience. The Company has six product candidates in development; AZ-001 (Staccato prochlorperazine) for the acute treatment of migraine headaches, AZ-004 (Staccato loxapine) for the treatment of acute agitation in schizophrenic patients, AZ-002 (Staccato alprazolam) for the acute treatment of panic attacks associated with panic disorder, AZ-104 (Staccato loxapine) for the acute treatment of migraine headaches, AZ-003 (Staccato fentanyl) for the treatment of patients with acute pain and AZ-007 (Staccato zaleplon) for the treatment of sleep disorder in patients who have difficulty falling asleep.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release includes forward-looking statements regarding growth of the Company's product candidate pipeline and development of the Company's product candidates. Any statement describing the Company's expectations or beliefs is a forward-looking statement, as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and should be considered an at-risk statement. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, particularly those inherent in the process of developing and commercializing drugs. The Company's forward-looking statements also involve assumptions that, if they prove incorrect, would cause its results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These and other risks concerning Alexza's business are described in additional detail in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K/A for the year ended December 31, 2006, and the Company's other Periodic and Current Reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements contained in this announcement are made as of this date, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
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