Toxinomics Foundation

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Dr George Miljanich

Vice-President of the Toxinomics Foundation

AirMid LCC
Redwood City
CA 94061
USA

E-mail: george.miljanich@toxinomics.org

George Miljanich is CEO of AIRMID LLC, a U.S. biotech company developing potassium channel blockers to treat autoimmune disorders. Dr Miljanich has been developing ion channel therapeutics, analgesics, and peptide-based therapeutics for more than 20 years. He is an author on over 50 scientific publications and is co-inventor on 15 U.S. patents as well as numerous corresponding non-U.S. patents.

Prior to AIRMID, he was Senior Medical Director at Elan Pharmaceuticals, playing a key role in progressing the analgesic peptide, PRIALT® (ziconotide), through clinical development, to FDA and EMEA approval, and onto the analgesia market. He also participated in the formulation of educational and marketing programs for PRIALT and served as chief spokesperson for the drug.

Dr Miljanich received a BS in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Chemistry from U.C. Santa Cruz. He then conducted post-doctoral research at U.C. San Francisco, studying presynaptic function. On the faculty at the University of Southern California, his research focused on the biochemistry and pharmacology of calcium channels and calcium channel-blocking conotoxins.

Dr Miljanich joined the Neurex Corporation to translate these research tools into pharmaceuticals. He contributed to the development of the conopeptide, PRIALT, through preclinical studies to Phase III clinical trials, while leading several drug discovery projects targeting presynaptic proteins. With the acquisition of Neurex, Dr. Miljanich became head of analgesia research at Elan and oversaw several research projects developing novel pain therapeutics. In addition to heading AIRMID, he advises and/or consultants for several companies in the pharmaceutical industry, including Elan Pharmaceuticals.