Flexion Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ: FLXN) is shuffling its deck of executives, so to speak, in an announcement that it made early Wednesday morning. The company announced that three new executives have joined the company in key marketing, medical affairs and market access roles.

The new executives joining the team are Mark Fraga, Scott Kelley, M.D., and Dan Thornton, taking on vice president positions at Flexion as the company prepares to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) in the fourth quarter of 2016 to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its drug candidate Zilretta.

Zilretta is being investigated as the first intra-articular sustained-release, non-opioid treatment for patients with moderate to severe knee osteoarthritis (OA) pain.

For some brief background on each new executive:

• Fraga is a proven global marketing and commercialization leader in the pharmaceutical and medical device markets. Before joining Flexion, Mr. Fraga served as head of global marketing at Sanofi, where he led two franchises in OA and surgical devices, including Synvisc, an injectable product for OA of the knee.
• Dr. Kelley has over 25 years of clinical, academic and industry medical affairs experience. Most recently, he served as Vice President, Global Medical Affairs at Sanofi where he oversaw global data generation, data dissemination and key opinion leader engagement for the Biosurgery portfolio including Synvisc. Prior to Sanofi, Dr. Kelley led medical affairs functions at Covidien Respiratory & Monitoring Solutions and at Aspect Medical Systems.
• Mr. Thornton has had leadership roles for nearly 20 years in patient and market access, pricing and distribution, and market development for a number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms. Most recently, he was VP of market access and patient services at Chiasma, where he built a comprehensive patient services and market access organization for the launch of an oral product for the treatment of acromegaly.

Michael Clayman, M.D., president and CEO of Flexion, commented:

We are delighted to be hiring Mark, Scott and Dan, each of whom comes to Flexion with deep expertise in their respective functions, a track record of strong accomplishment, and a professional style that we believe will contribute importantly to Flexion’s culture. Their leadership will critically enable the launch of Zilretta, which we anticipate in 2017.

Shares of Flexion were trading up about 8% at $16.74 on Wednesday, with a consensus analyst price target of $35.71 and a 52-week trading range of $7.56 to $29.09.

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