Trevena Names David Soergel, M.D. Vice President and Head, Clinical Development

Trevena Continues to Add Proven Industry Expertise to Corporate Leadership Team

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Trevena Inc., a leader in the discovery of G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) biased ligands, announced today that it has named David Soergel, M.D. vice president and head, clinical development. In this role, Dr. Soergel is responsible for shaping Trevena's clinical strategy and the operational execution of its development programs.

"We are very excited to have David on the team at Trevena and to add his experience and expertise building and running clinical development programs to our capabilities," said Maxine Gowen, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Trevena. "David's leadership is key as we prepare to enter Phase 1 clinical trials with the first ever biased ligand program to treat patients with acute heart failure in the first half of this year. We are looking forward to working with him and to advancing our portfolio of next-generation GPCR drugs."

Prior to joining Trevena, Dr. Soergel was senior director, clinical development at Concert Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for clinical strategy and operations across diverse therapy areas, including infectious and CNS diseases. Earlier in his career, Dr. Soergel served as director of discovery medicine at GlaxoSmithKline in the Cardiovascular / Urogenital Center of Excellence for Drug Discovery, where he was involved in development of compounds from the bench to the bedside in the areas of cardiovascular disease, women's health and urology. After completing an NIH-funded post-doctoral fellowship and receiving the Fellow's Award for Basic Research from the Society for Pediatric Research, Dr. Soergel completed his clinical training in Pediatric Cardiology at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He underwent additional training in Heart Failure and Transplant at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He holds a B.A. from The Johns Hopkins University and an M.D. from Cornell University Medical College.

"I am proud to be joining such an innovative team working at the cutting edge of biased ligand drug discovery and development," said Dr. Soergel. "With such a promising portfolio of GPCR programs, Trevena offers an unparalleled opportunity to lead drug development efforts that could ultimately have a striking impact in indications with critical unmet medical need."

Approximately 40% of modern medicinal products target GPCRs and GPCRs remain the largest class of targets currently under clinical evaluation. However, currently marketed GPCR drugs suffer significant problems such as limited efficacy and undesirable adverse effects, which often limit their overall use. Furthermore, there are many GPCRs linked to disease that cannot be translated into medicines because of specific target-related adverse effects. Trevena's novel drug discovery approach is focused on discovering and developing a linked portfolio of GPCR ligands that are "biased" toward either activating or blocking specific signaling pathways mediated through individual GPCRs. Unlike traditional, broad GPCR approaches, the enhanced focus and specificity of these biased ligands for specific targets enables Trevena to engage only the desired signaling pathway and deliver optimal therapeutic effects - without many of the unwanted effects seen with less selective GPCR approaches.

About Trevena

Trevena, Inc. is a privately-held pharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) targeted medicines. Its unique linked portfolio combines a powerful and efficient drug discovery platform with extensive development experience to yield a rich pipeline of potential medicines. Trevena's proprietary Advanced Biased Ligand Explorer, or ABLE(TM), platform is a fully integrated collection of tools for identifying and characterizing biased GPCR ligands. The platform includes customized assays, proprietary software, animal models and unique biological signaling information across multiple GPCRs. The company's drug discovery technology is based on extensive research from the laboratories of leading scientists in the field - Robert J. Lefkowitz, M.D. and Howard A. Rockman, M.D. of Duke University Medical Center. Trevena's pipeline is currently focused on programs for cardiovascular and CNS indications with significant unmet medical needs. Founded in 2008, Trevena is based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and is backed by leading investors including Alta Partners, Healthcare Ventures, NEA, Polaris and Yasuda Economic Development Corporation. For more information about the company, please visit www.trevenainc.com.

    Source: Trevena Inc.

Released February 8, 2010