Marinus Pharmaceuticals Announces Formation of Scientific Advisory Board

Board includes 6 globally recognized seizure disorder experts

RADNOR, Pa., April 30, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Marinus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRNS), a pharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of innovative therapeutics to treat rare seizure disorders, today announced the formation of a Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) with the appointment of six leading experts in clinical neurology and seizure disorders: Jacqueline French, M.D., Lawrence Hirsch, M.D., Aatif Husain, M.D., Michael Rogawski M.D., Ph.D., Eugen Trinka, M.D. and Henrikas Vaitkevicius, M.D.

“We believe the strength and enthusiasm of our newly-formed scientific advisory board, with an expertise in clinical development and global registration strategies for novel anti-epileptic drugs, is a testament to our commitment to ganaxolone in patients with severe seizure disorders,” said Scott Braunstein, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Marinus. “The insights from these scientific thought-leaders will be invaluable as we approach key milestones in our epilepsy programs.”

Marinus SAB members will include:

Jacqueline French, M.D., Professor of Neurology in the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at NYU Langone School of Medicine and Founder/Director of the Epilepsy Study Consortium, an academic group that has performed several early phase clinical trials in epilepsy. Dr. French trained in Neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and did her fellowship training in EEG and epilepsy at Mount Sinai hospital and Yale University. Over the past 20 years Dr. French has served as the Principle investigator on several trials for new epilepsy drugs and has focused her research efforts developing new therapeutics for epilepsy and novel methodologies for clinical trials. Dr. French, who serves as Chief Medical/Innovation Officer for the Epilepsy Foundation, has been active in creating guidelines for the American Academy of Neurology and the International League Against Epilepsy. She is the editor of three books and has authored over 300 articles and chapters.

Lawrence Hirsch, M.D., Professor of Neurology, Chief of Division of Epilepsy and Electroencephalography (EEG), and Co-Director of the Yale Comprehensive Epilepsy Center. He has held leadership positions at the American Clinical Neurophysiology Society (ACNS), American Epilepsy Society, American Academy of Neurology and the Epilepsy Foundation, and is founder and former chair of the Critical Care EEG Monitoring Research Consortium, which now includes more than 50 centers across North America. He is lead author of the ACNS guideline on critical care EEG terminology, and has been an active researcher throughout his career, having published more than 150 original research manuscripts and more than 100 reviews, editorials or book chapters on topics including status epilepticus, EEG, and antiepileptic drugs. Dr. Hirsch is co-author of the first-ever atlas on EEG in critical care.