Team

• Team with expertise and previous success

Richard Gomer, Ph.D., scientific founder of Prosia, former scientific founder of Promedior, biologist

Dr. Gomer is the scientific leader of Prosia. Dr. Gomer is a Distinguished Professor of Biology at Texas A&M University.  A key mission of his laboratory is the elucidation of mechanisms that drive fibrosis.  The Gomer lab found that a human serum protein called serum amyloid P (SAP, also called Pentraxin 2 or PTX2) calms the innate immune system and is a potential therapeutic for fibrosis. Dr. Gomer co-founded Promedior to pursue this. He helped Promedior raise $226 M in venture capital funding, and Promedior found that SAP injections show better efficacy than current standard of care at reducing fibrosis in Phase 1b and Phase 2 trials on pulmonary fibrosis patients, and a Phase 2 trial in myelofibrosis patients. Roche recently purchased Promedior to pursue the Phase 3 trials for pulmonary fibrosis (currently enrolling as the STARSCAPE trial) and to test SAP as a therapeutic for other fibrosing diseases.  Prior to joining Texas A&M in 2010, Dr. Gomer was a Professor of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Rice University, and a HHMI Investigator.

• Tom Meek, Ph.D., scientific founder of Prosia, former World Wide Vice President at GSK, medicinal chemist
  • Dr. Meek will serve as Head of Medicinal Chemistry of Prosia. This role includes design, synthesis, and enzymatic characterization of enzyme inhibitors of human NEU3, oversight of structural biology of NEU3, selectivity and safety profiling of lead compounds, and collaboration on pre-clinical studies of candidate-quality inhibitors.
  • Dr. Meek is a Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at Texas A&M University.  The mission of his laboratory is the rational design of enzyme inhibitors.  For instance, the Meek lab discovered a cysteine protease inhibitor that has advanced to Phase II clinical trials within eighteen months.  Prior to joining Texas A&M in 2014, Dr. Meek held numerous world-wide leadership roles in early-stage drug discovery at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, and he has worked in drug discovery at several pharmaceutical companies since 1984.  He was a co-discoverer of the HIV protease, inhibitors of which have  transformed AIDS/HIV into a manageable disease, as well as beta-secretase, the latter enzyme being responsible for amyloid plaque formation in Alzheimer’s Disease.