Inovio Expands Executive Team to Advance its DNA Immunotherapy Product Portfolio
October 12 2016 - 7:00AM
Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:INO) today announced strategic
leadership appointments to support the advancement of its portfolio
of DNA-based cancer immunotherapies and infectious disease
vaccines. Inovio has an extensive pipeline of clinical-stage cancer
immunotherapies highlighted by VGX-3100, which is entering phase
III this year; and DNA vaccines in development for Zika, MERS and
HIV, among others.
Inovio adds two oncologists and a plasmid
manufacturing expert reporting to Inovio’s Chief Medical Officer,
Dr. Mark Bagarazzi:
- Dr. Ildiko Csiki will serve Inovio as Vice President, Clinical
Development, Oncology, responsible for advancing Inovio’s cancer
programs. Prior to joining Inovio, Dr. Csiki had been clinical lead
and senior director of clinical research at Merck & Co. where
she guided Merck’s global solid tumor development program and was
lead for several registration studies. Dr. Csiki also served as
GSK’s director of clinical development and lead physician for the
follicular lymphoma program. Dr. Csiki earned her MD and PhD
degrees from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and her BS in
Biology and BA in Psychology from the University of
Arkansas.
- Dr. Jeffrey Skolnik, Vice President, Clinical Development,
Oncology, will also direct Inovio’s cancer immunotherapy programs.
Dr. Skolnik was previously vice president of clinical research at
TetraLogic Pharmaceuticals, where he oversaw all global clinical
assets. He also served as a medical director at GSK and
AstraZeneca. Dr. Skolnik earned his MD at New York University, with
honors in pathology, and his undergraduate degree from the
University of Pennsylvania.
- Robert J. Juba Jr. has been promoted to Vice President,
Biological Manufacturing and Clinical Supply Management, and is
responsible for ensuring the provision of Inovio’s SynCon® plasmid
DNA therapeutic and prophylactic vaccine candidates for clinical
use. He has 22 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry
managing cGMP processes and operations, with extensive technical
expertise in bacterial vaccine manufacturing. He led plasmid
manufacturing at VGXI, Inc. and held several positions at Merck in
bulk vaccine manufacturing operations and strategy. He holds
Masters and BS degrees in Chemical Engineering from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Inovio has also bolstered its manufacturing and
business development functions with two additional staff reporting
to Dr. Niranjan Sardesai, Inovio’s Chief Operating Officer:
- Daniel Jordan will serve as Inovio’s Vice President, Device
Manufacturing Operations. Previously he was vice president of U.S.
and Canadian operations at Verisk Analytics, a 3M company. He has
over 25 years of medical device manufacturing operations experience
in early growth to mature organizations. Most recently he served as
executive director of global operations at Teleflex Medical, a
diversified medical device manufacturer. He earned an MBA in
Finance from Weber University and a BS in Business Management at
San Diego State University.
- Dr. Paul Stead, Inovio’s Vice President, Business Development,
will lead business development and partnering activities. He was
vice president, business development at Nimbus Therapeutics, a
company developing novel treatments for metabolic and immunological
diseases, and oncology. For more than 20 years he served GSK in
roles of increasing responsibility including business development,
competitive intelligence and discovery chemistry. He holds an MBA
from Lehigh University, a PhD in pharmaceutical sciences from the
University of Nottingham, and a BS in Pharmacy from the University
of Bath.
Dr. J. Joseph Kim, Inovio’s President & CEO,
said, “We welcome these talented and experienced technical and
business leaders to Inovio as we work to bring new breakthrough
cancer medicines and vaccines to patients. It is gratifying that
Inovio's corporate culture, validated platform, and important
product pipeline are attracting such accomplished executives to
help us execute our product development and commercialization
strategy.”
About Inovio Pharmaceuticals,
Inc.
Inovio is taking immunotherapy to the next level in
the fight against cancer and infectious diseases. We are the only
immunotherapy company that has reported generating T cells in vivo
in high quantity that are fully functional and whose killing
capacity correlates with relevant clinical outcomes with a
favorable safety profile. With an expanding portfolio of immune
therapies, the company is advancing a growing preclinical and
clinical stage product pipeline. Partners and collaborators include
MedImmune, The Wistar Institute, University of Pennsylvania, DARPA,
GeneOne Life Science, Plumbline Life Sciences, Drexel University,
NIH, HIV Vaccines Trial Network, National Cancer Institute, U.S.
Military HIV Research Program, and Laval University. For more
information, visit www.inovio.com.
This press release contains certain forward-looking
statements relating to our business, including our plans to develop
electroporation-based drug and gene delivery technologies and DNA
vaccines, our expectations regarding our research and development
programs and our capital resources. Actual events or results may
differ from the expectations set forth herein as a result of a
number of factors, including uncertainties inherent in pre-clinical
studies, clinical trials and product development programs,
including the Zika vaccine GLS-5700, the availability of funding to
support continuing research and studies in an effort to prove
safety and efficacy of electroporation technology as a delivery
mechanism or develop viable DNA vaccines, our ability to support
our broad pipeline of SynCon® active immunotherapy and vaccine
products, the ability of our collaborators to attain development
and commercial milestones for products we license and product sales
that will enable us to receive future payments and royalties, the
adequacy of our capital resources, the availability or potential
availability of alternative therapies or treatments for the
conditions targeted by the company or its collaborators, including
alternatives that may be more efficacious or cost effective than
any therapy or treatment that the company and its collaborators
hope to develop, issues involving product liability, issues
involving patents and whether they or licenses to them will provide
the company with meaningful protection from others using the
covered technologies, whether such proprietary rights are
enforceable or defensible or infringe or allegedly infringe on
rights of others or can withstand claims of invalidity and whether
the company can finance or devote other significant resources that
may be necessary to prosecute, protect or defend them, the level of
corporate expenditures, assessments of the company's technology by
potential corporate or other partners or collaborators, capital
market conditions, the impact of government healthcare proposals
and other factors set forth in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for
the year ended December 31, 2015, our Form 10-Q for the quarter
ended June 30, 2016, and other regulatory filings from
time to time. There can be no assurance that any product in
Inovio's pipeline will be successfully developed or manufactured,
that final results of clinical studies will be supportive of
regulatory approvals required to market licensed products, or that
any of the forward-looking information provided herein will be
proven accurate.
CONTACTS:
Investors: Bernie Hertel, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, 858-410-3101, bhertel@inovio.com
Media: Jeff Richardson, Inovio Pharmaceuticals, 267-440-4211, jrichardson@inovio.com
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