Sucampo Appoints Dipak Panigrahi, MS, MD, as Vice President, Medical Affairs

Published on Wednesday, 20 June 2012 07:07 Written by TradersHuddle Staff

BETHESDA, Md.-( Business Wire )-

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCMP) today announced that Dipak Panigrahi, MS, MD, has joined the company as Vice President, Medical Affairs, a newly created position to expand our activity in this area. He will report to Thomas J. Knapp, Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary. Dr. Panigrahi now leads Sucampo’s global Medical Affairs efforts, including establishing and leading our Medical Science Liaison (MSL) department and has assumed responsibility for medical message development, publications planning, key opinion leader development and providing advice on clinical trial design and development.

Ryuji Ueno, MD, PhD, PhD, Chair, CEO and CSO, said, “We welcome Dr. Panigrahi to Sucampo and look forward to his fulfilling a primary role in our communications with key physicians and scientific leaders across all our therapeutic areas. The broad range of his experiences, both as a physician in the clinic and in the pharmaceutical industry, will add great value to the AMITIZA^® and RESCULA^® brands. As a company that remains particularly focused on scientific advancements and research, our MSL team will be a key value driver in communicating those messages to the medical community. Our planned launch of RESCULA^®, later this year in the US, will be one of our major events for Sucampo and will move us closer to becoming a fully integrated pharmaceutical company that discovers, develops, manufactures and commercializes its own products.”

Dr. Panigrahi joins Sucampo from Provision Pharmaceutical Consulting, a boutique contract pharmaceutical support firm, which he joined in March 2011. Prior to Provision, Dr. Panigrahi was Senior Vice President, R&D and Chief Medical Officer of QLT Inc. with overall responsibility for the planning, development, implementation and supervision of all phases of that company’s global research and development. Prior to joining QLT, Dr. Penigrahi was Vice President, Glaucoma Development at Alcon Laboratories, Inc. from July 2009 to March 2010. At Alcon, he was responsible for planning, developing and supervising all phases of global glaucoma pharmaceutical development. Previously, Dr. Penigrahi had been Associate Director at Merck & Co. Dr. Panigrahi earned a BA from John Hopkins University, an MD and MS, in Medical Sciences, from Hahnemann School of Medicine, interned in Internal Medicine at Mercy Medical Center/University of Maryland and completed his training with a residency in Ophthalmology at Georgetown-Washington Hospital Center.

About Sucampo Pharmaceuticals

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a global pharmaceutical company is focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of proprietary drugs based on prostones. The therapeutic potential of prostones, which occur naturally in the human body as a result of enzymic (15-PGDH) transformation of certain fatty acids, was first identified by Ryuji Ueno, M.D., Ph.D., Ph.D., Sucampo Pharmaceuticals’ Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Ueno founded Sucampo Pharmaceuticals in 1996 with Sachiko Kuno, Ph.D., founding Chief Executive Officer and currently Advisor, International Business Development, and a member of the Board of Directors. For more information, please visit www.sucampo.com.

RESCULA is a registered trademark of R-Tech Ueno, Ltd., and has been licensed to Sucampo.

Sucampo Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on management’s current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties, which may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. The forward-looking statements may include statements regarding product development, product potential, future financial and operating results, and other statements that are not historical facts. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements: the impact of pharmaceutical industry regulation and health care legislation; Sucampo’s ability to accurately predict future market conditions; dependence on the effectiveness of Sucampo’s patents and other protections for innovative products; the risk of new and changing regulation and health policies in the US and internationally and the exposure to litigation and/or regulatory actions.

No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual results may differ materially from those projected. Sucampo undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Forward-looking statements in this presentation should be evaluated together with the many uncertainties that affect Sucampo’s business, particularly those mentioned in the risk factors and cautionary statements in Sucampo’s Form 10-K for the year ended Dec. 31, 2011, which the Company incorporates by reference.

Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc.Kate de Santis, + This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.