Micromet Appoints Former Roche Oncology Clinical Leader Jan Fagerberg as Chief Medical Officer

BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 22  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Micromet, Inc. (NASDAQ: MITI), a biopharmaceutical company developing novel, proprietary antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and autoimmune diseases, today announced the appointment of Jan Fagerberg, M.D., Ph.D., as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer effective November 1, 2009.

Dr. Fagerberg is a board-certified clinical oncologist and has more than 20 years of experience in clinical research and development of oncology drugs. His experience includes several years at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in positions of increasing responsibility both in the US and in Switzerland, ultimately serving as the Therapeutic Area Expert Oncology in Global Drug Development of Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel, Switzerland. During his tenure at Roche, he was responsible for the global clinical development of Xeloda, and for the clinical development programs of Avastin outside the US. He was also advising Roche's clinical development teams globally on the development of all compounds for the treatment of gastrointestinal cancers.  Dr. Fagerberg has extensive US and European regulatory experience, and was successful in obtaining 11 FDA and EMEA approvals for Xeloda and Avastin. Dr. Fagerberg joins Micromet from TopoTarget where he was Medical Director responsible for the pivotal clinical development program for belinostat for the treatment of peripheral T-cell lymphoma.

"We are very pleased to have Jan Fagerberg join us as our new Chief Medical Officer," said Christian Itin, Micromet's Chief Executive Officer. "Jan's extensive clinical and regulatory experience will be a tremendous asset as we are preparing pivotal stage clinical trials for blinatumomab."

"I am excited about the opportunity to advance the development of blinatumomab for the treatment of patients with hematologic malignancies and of MT110 for the treatment of patients with solid tumors," commented Dr. Jan Fagerberg, "and I am looking forward to translating the highly differentiated properties of BiTE antibodies into new therapies that benefit the lives of cancer patients."

Dr. Fagerberg received his MD degree at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm Sweden in 1988.  He then received his Ph.D. for work in clinically applied passive and active immunotherapy targeting EpCAM in colorectal carcinomas in 1995.  From 1995 to 1999 Jan held various clinical positions including Associate Head Section of Radiotherapy and Chief Physician at the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm.  Dr. Fagerberg joined Roche in 1999 and over the following seven years assumed positions of increasing responsibility.  Since 2006 he has been Medical Director at TopoTarget in Copenhagen, Denmark.

About Micromet, Inc.

Micromet, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel, proprietary antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and autoimmune diseases. Its product development pipeline includes novel antibodies generated with its proprietary BiTE  antibody platform, as well as conventional monoclonal antibodies. Two of Micromet's BiTE antibodies and three of its conventional antibodies are currently in clinical trials.  Micromet's preclinical product pipeline includes several novel BiTE antibodies generated with its proprietary BiTE antibody platform technology.  Micromet's collaboration partners include Bayer Schering Pharma, Merck Serono, MedImmune and Nycomed.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to be materially different from historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding the efficacy, safety and intended utilization of Micromet's BiTE antibody blinatumomab, MT110 and other product candidates, the conduct, timing and results of future clinical trials, and expectations of the future expansion of our product pipeline and collaborations. You are urged to consider statements that include the words "ongoing," "may," "will," "believes," "potential," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "intends," or the negative of those words or other similar words to be uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements include the risk that product candidates that appeared promising in early research, preclinical studies or clinical trials do not demonstrate safety and/or efficacy in subsequent clinical trials, the risk that encouraging results from early research, preclinical studies or clinical trials may not be confirmed upon further analysis of the detailed results of such research, preclinical study or clinical trial, the risk that additional information relating to the safety, efficacy or tolerability of our product candidates may be discovered upon further analysis of preclinical or clinical trial data, the risk that we or our collaborators will not obtain approval to market our product candidates, the risks associated with reliance on outside financing to meet capital requirements, and the risks associated with reliance on collaborators, including Bayer Schering Pharma, MedImmune, Merck Serono, TRACON and Nycomed, for the funding or conduct of further development and commercialization activities relating to our product candidates. These factors and others are more fully discussed in Micromet's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended June 30, 2009, filed with the SEC on August 6, 2009, as well as other filings by the company with the SEC. 

DATASOURCE: Micromet, Inc.



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