Jeff Poole Appointed First Chief Financial Officer of DiscGenics

DiscGenics, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in Salt Lake City, Utah, has announced the appointment of Jeff Poole to the role of Chief Financial Officer. The company’s product candidate, IDCT, is an allogenic injectable discogenic cellular therapy for lumbar degenerative disc disease (DDD). IDCT is currently being tested in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial at multiple sites in the U.S. and another trial in Japan. The U.S. trial completed enrollment earlier in 2020 and, until now, the company has operated without a Chief Financial Officer.

Jeff Poole is the former VP of Finance for the Spine and Biologics division of Medtronic, plc. He oversaw the global business unit’s $2.5 billion annual revenue and has developed international experience over his 13 years of financial leadership positions at Medtronic. He has also lived in Japan for over 4 years and is fluent in the language, another asset to the company with strong ties to investment and clinical experience in Japan.

In a company press release Poole said, “I am thrilled to be joining DiscGenics because I truly believe its innovative regenerative therapy addresses an unmet clinical need and could significantly alter the definition of Standard of Care for patients suffering from spinal disc degeneration.”

Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors, Flagg Flannigan, is pleased to have Poole help the company as “we move through our final clinical stages and evaluate various financing and commercial opportunities going forward in the U.S. and Japan.”

DiscGenics recently received $50 million in Series C funding, bringing total fundraising to over $71 million. The funds are being used to continue the trials currently underway, as well as to conduct preclinical work on use of the product in cervical DDD, post-fusion adjacent levels, and post-discectomy use.