Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals Appoints Larry Tsai, M.D. to Chief Medical Officer


WATERTOWN, Mass., Jan. 02, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTPH), a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing novel antibiotics to treat life-threatening multidrug-resistant (MDR) infections, today announced the promotion of Larry Tsai, M.D., Vice President, Clinical Development, to Chief Medical Officer (CMO).

“Larry has provided significant expertise to the clinical team throughout the IGNITE phase 3 program for eravacycline, our lead antibiotic candidate, as well as in the early clinical development of the Company’s pipeline programs,” said Guy Macdonald, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tetraphase. “We are delighted to welcome him to the management team.  His leadership of the clinical team will be important as we move forward with the new drug application (NDA) regulatory process for IV eravacycline in complicated intra-abdominal infections (cIAI) and as we await the topline data readout for our IGNITE3 phase 3 trial in complicated urinary tract infections (cUTI). We remain on track to report IGNITE3 topline data this quarter.”

“I am excited to be taking on this leadership role at Tetraphase,” said Dr. Tsai. “I look forward to continuing to work with the rest of management to realize the full potential of eravacycline as a treatment option for serious, and often life-threatening, MDR gram-negative infections.”

Dr. Tsai joined the Company in 2014 as senior medical director and became vice president, clinical development in 2015. He has nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare and clinical development. Prior to joining Tetraphase, he was vice president of research and development, in addition to medical director, at Aeris Therapeutics. Dr. Tsai is also a practicing physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and a part-time instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Tsai holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Stanford University and an M.D. from the Health Sciences and Technology Program at Harvard Medical School. He is board certified in critical care medicine, internal medicine and pulmonary disease.

About Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Tetraphase is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company using its proprietary chemistry technology to create novel antibiotics for serious and life-threatening bacterial infections, including those caused by many of the multidrug-resistant (MDR) bacteria highlighted as urgent public health threats by the CDC. Tetraphase has created more than 3,000 novel tetracycline analogs using its proprietary technology platform. Tetraphase's pipeline includes three antibiotic clinical candidates: eravacycline, which has completed enrollment of phase 3 clinical trials, and TP-271 and TP-6076, which are in phase 1 clinical trials. Please visit www.tphase.com for more company information.

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