Ingenium Pharmaceuticals AG announced that Klaus Dembowsky has joined the company as Vice President Drug Discovery and will lead research and development activities, focusing on advancing Ingenium's internal drug discovery portfolio toward clinical testing. Dr. Dembowsky joins Ingenium from Bayer Corporation, where he spent over 10 years in drug discovery and development, most recently as a manager of the Bayer-Millennium collaboration for drug target discovery.

"Klaus brings to us the right mix of pharmaceutical development expertise, hands-on discovery and collaboration experience and valuable research focus in both the drug classes and therapeutic areas of primary importance," commented Michael C. Nehls, Chief Executive Officer of Ingenium. "At this critical juncture in Ingenium's development as a drug discovery leader, we are thrilled to have Klaus work with us to build our internal strength and lead our research and development."

Dr. Dembowsky has over 20 years experience in pharmaceutical research and development and academic research. Over the course of his 10-year tenure at Bayer Corporation, Dr. Dembowsky was active across all stages of drug discovery and development, including drug target identification and selection, compound optimization, pre-clinical drug development and clinical trial consultation.

Most recently, Dr. Dembowsky was Project Manager and Team Leader for the Bayer-Millennium target discovery collaboration on site at Millennium's facilities in Cambridge/MA. Prior to Bayer, Dr. Dembowsky was Associate Professor of Physiology at the University of Heidelberg. Dr. Dembowsky has conducted extensive academic research in the area of neurobiology and has co-edited a book on recombinant proteins. Dr. Dembowsky received his Ph.D. in physiology and his M.D. from the University of Heidelberg.