4 April 2019 - - US-based biopharmaceutical company X4 Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: XFOR) has appointed Murray Stewart, M.D., as an independent member of the X4 board of directors, the company said.

Stewart currently serves as chief medical officer of Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing therapies for the treatment of rare genetic disorders of obesity.

Before joining Rhythm Pharmaceuticals in 2018, Stewart was Head of R and D for Novelion, where he oversaw global medical affairs for Juxtapid and Myalept, two marketed products for rare metabolic diseases.

Prior to that, Stewart was CMO at GlaxoSmithKline, with global responsibility for patient well-being across the vaccine, pharmaceutical, and consumer business units.

During his 18-year career at GSK, Stewart held multiple research and development leadership roles, including CMO for the pharmaceutical business, clinical head of the Biopharma Unit, and Therapy Area Head for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases.

Prior to his tenure with GSK, he worked as a consultant physician and honorary senior lecturer at the Diabetes Center in Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK Dr. Stewart is an M.D. from Southampton Medical School and is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

X4 Pharmaceuticals is developing novel therapeutics designed to improve immune cell trafficking to treat rare diseases, including primary immunodeficiencies and cancer.

The company's oral small molecule drug candidates antagonize the CXCR4 pathway, which plays a central role in immune surveillance.

X4's most advanced product candidate, mavorixafor (X4P-001), will be commencing a global Phase 3 pivotal trial in patients with WHIM syndrome, a rare genetic, primary immunodeficiency disease, in the second quarter of 2019 and is currently also under investigation in a Phase 2a clinical trial in clear cell renal cell carcinoma.

X4 was founded and is led by a team with extensive product development and commercialization expertise, including several former members of the Genzyme leadership team, and is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts.