The company has appointed Dr. John Öhd as the Company’s Chief Medical Officer (CMO).

Öhd joins Modus from Medivir, where he was CMO and a member of the company’s Executive Management team. Before taking up his current position, John was Medivir’s Director of Clinical R&D. Prior to joining Medivir, John was senior director of Experimental Medicine at Shire based in Nyon, Switzerland.  Between 2007 and 2012, Dr. Öhd held several positions at AstraZeneca in Södertalje, Sweden. In his early career, John worked in cancer research, initially at Lund University, where he received a PhD in Experimental Pathology and subsequently at Karolinska Institute. John received his MD from Linköping University, and trained clinically at Karolinska University Hospital.

“I am excited to join Modus to help the company develop sevuparin, a novel treatment being developed for SCD and a number of other indications. In the short term our focus is on completing the on-going Phase II study which is looking to show that sevuparin can address the underlying cause of the VOCs experienced by SCD patients. The trial is designed to demonstrate that sevuparin is safe and well tolerated and can provide earlier pain relief, a reduced need for opioids, shorter hospital stays and, as a result, improve the patient’s quality of life,” says John Öhd.

“We are delighted that we have been able to attract someone of John’s calibre as our new CMO. John not only has extensive clinical development experience, but he brings to Modus important prior experience working on sickle cell disease (SCD) at Shire,” says Ellen K. Donnelly, Chief Executive of Modus Therapeutics.

Photo of John Öhd: Medivir