RYTM - Rhythm Pharmaceuticals Announces Appointment of Alastair Garfield Ph.D. as Chief Scientific Officer | Benzinga
BOSTON, July 08, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:RYTM), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on transforming the lives of patients and their families living with rare neuroendocrine diseases, today announced the appointment of Alastair "Al" Garfield, Ph.D. as Chief Scientific Officer, effective July 1.
"We are excited to welcome Al back to Rhythm as we continue to leverage our understanding of the melanocortin-4 receptor (MC4R) pathway to bring potential therapies to patients and their families," said David Meeker, M.D., Rhythm Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President. "Al's leadership and established scientific expertise and experience in the brain's regulation of appetite and body weight were instrumental in defining the Rhythm of today, and we are genuinely thrilled he chose to rejoin Rhythm to help us achieve our vision for the future of MC4R therapeutics."
Dr. Garfield said, "After being part of the team to develop the first generation of MC4R agonists and seeing the transformational promise this precision medicine approach has delivered to patients and families living with hyperphagia and severe obesity, I am excited about the potential for additional opportunities for Rhythm. Decades of research interest in the MC4R pathway tell us that this robustly validated target has broad clinical relevance, and as the industry leader in this mechanism, I believe Rhythm is uniquely positioned to deliver on this potential."
Dr. Garfield rejoins Rhythm after serving as Senior Vice President and Head of Translational Sciences and Strategy at Rectify Pharma, where he helped deliver first-in-class therapeutics for rare disease. Prior to joining Rectify, Dr. Garfield was Senior Vice President and Head of Translational Research at Rhythm. He also held roles at Pfizer, where he was a lab head in the Cardiovascular Metabolic Disease Research Unit and led novel obesity target identification.
Dr. Garfield's holds a first-class degree in molecular and cellular biology and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the University of Bath, UK. His postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Cardiff, UK and University of Cambridge, UK focused on neural pathways and genes underlying mammalian energy balance. As an assistant professor at the University of Edinburgh, UK and visiting professor Harvard Medical School, Dr. Garfield's independent research expanded the field's understanding of the hypothalamic melanocrotinergic networks regulating metabolism, body weight and appetite. His research has been published in leading scientific journals including Nature, Nature Neuroscience, Neuron, and Cell Metabolism. Dr Garfield has authored numerous original research and review articles on the MC4R pathway, including "Melanocortin-4 receptor-regulated energy homeostasis," which was published in Nature Neuroscience in 2016 (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26814590/).
About Rhythm Pharmaceuticals
Rhythm is a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to transforming the lives of patients and their families living with rare neuroendocrine ...