Ascentage Pharma Appoints Jeff Kmetz as Chief Business Officer to Lead Global Commercial Operations and Business Development

Ascentage Pharma is a China-based, globally oriented clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing innovative drugs in therapeutic areas such as oncology, hepatitis B, and age-related diseases. On February 15, 2019, the company announced a personnel appointment, naming Jeff Kmetz as its Chief Business Officer, who will report to Dr. Dajun Yang, Chairman of the Board. Mr. Kmetz will be fully responsible for the company’s commercial operations and business development.

Mr. Kmetz has over 25 years of global experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Prior to joining Ascentage Pharma, he served as Chief Business Officer at Pulse Biosciences and held senior executive roles in business operations at Pharmacyclics and Alexion.

“We are delighted to welcome Jeff to our executive leadership team,” said Dr. Yang Dajun. “He has an impressive track record in developing and executing product management strategies and commercial operations with a focus on oncology. With Jeff’s support, we look forward to fully leveraging Ascentage Pharma’s unique advantages in its apoptosis-targeted product pipeline and leading the company into the commercialization phase.”

Mr. Kmetz stated, “I am highly interested in Ascentage Pharma’s pipeline of apoptosis-targeted products. As the company’s Chief Business Officer, I look forward to leveraging my expertise in hematology/oncology, particularly in commercial development strategy, to contribute to the company’s future growth.”

In his earlier career, Mr. Kmetz served for many years in senior executive roles in marketing and business development.

Prior to joining Ascentage Pharma, he served as Chief Business Officer at Pulse Biosciences, where he was responsible for the development of the company’s nanosecond pulsed electric field technology in oncology. Previously, Mr. Kmetz led business development and marketing efforts at Pharmacyclics, where he spearheaded the commercialization and lifecycle management strategy for the BTK inhibitor Imbruvica® (ibrutinib), achieving remarkable success. This blockbuster product played a pivotal role in AbbVie’s $21 billion acquisition of Pharmacyclics in 2015.

Previously, Mr. Kmetz held positions in the hematology-oncology business units at companies such as Bayer and Alexion, where he was responsible for related marketing and sales activities.

Ascentage Pharma is a clinical-stage, globally oriented biopharmaceutical company headquartered in China, dedicated to developing innovative drugs for the treatment of cancer, hepatitis B, and age-related diseases. The company possesses an independently developed protein-protein interaction (PPI) targeted drug design platform. Ascentage Pharma’s R&D pipeline primarily focuses on inhibitors of key proteins in the apoptosis pathway, such as BCL-2, IAP, and MDM2-p53, to reactivate apoptotic programs in tumor cells, as well as second- and third-generation inhibitors targeting kinase mutations that emerge during cancer therapy. Currently, eight of the company’s novel drug candidates have entered Phase I-II clinical development in China, the United States, and Australia.