PENNINGTON, N.J. and
SAN DIEGO, June 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- OncoSec
Medical Incorporated (NASDAQ:ONCS) (the "Company" or "OncoSec"),
today announced the appointment of Jeffrey
Silverman as Vice President of Product Engineering,
effective June 14, 2021. Mr.
Silverman, an engineering management veteran, brings to OncoSec
extensive global industry experience spanning more than 20 years,
in the development, manufacturing and scale up of Medical Devices
including electroporation and gene delivery equipment for the
delivery of DNA drugs in support of cancer and vaccine
research.
For more than five years, Mr. Silverman served as Vice President
at Ichor Medical Systems, Inc., an industry leader focused on the
development, manufacture and sale of electroporation devices for
the intracellular delivery of nucleic acid-based drugs encoding
therapeutic proteins. While at Ichor, he was responsible for
establishing and leading the engineering, operations and quality
teams for the company's electroporation equipment for the
delivery of DNA drugs in support of cancer and vaccine research.
Mr. Silverman was also responsible for engineering design
execution and planning, supply chain, supplier audits, internal and
external manufacturing and contract coordination.
Prior to joining Ichor Medical Systems, Mr. Silverman was the
Managing Director at Varioscale, Inc. Adding to his past
experience, he held a variety of engineering and business manager
roles, including his time at Abbott Laboratories and Guidant
Corporation where he managed business alliance, program management,
engineering/manufacturing process development and improvements.
"Jeff's extensive clinical development experience with
electroporation and intertumoral gene delivery technologies aligns
perfectly with OncoSec's mission of utilizing intratumoral
electroporation to achieve targeted and sustained delivery of IL-12
for significantly underserved cancer patients. He will be
replacing John Rodriguez, former
Vice President of Product Engineering and Manufacturing, who is
retiring after five years at OncoSec," said Daniel J. O'Connor, President and Chief
Executive Officer of OncoSec. "As we continue advancing our
lead product candidate, TAVO™, through clinical trials, we
believe Jeff's prior experience in R&D and commercialization of
electroporation and gene delivery devices will be crucial in our
mission to deliver this treatment directly into patients' tumors,
thereby avoiding system toxicities while still having a whole-body
anti-tumor effect, in the hopes of providing long-term
benefits."
Mr. Silverman added, "The preliminary data seen in OncoSec's
clinical trials evaluating TAVO™ in combination with
KEYTRUDA® for the treatment of anti-PD-1 checkpoint
refractory metastatic melanoma and for metastatic triple-negative
breast cancer present an encouraging path toward bringing this
therapy to market. I look forward to working with Dan and the
leadership team to develop and execute OncoSec's clinical trial
strategy and lead manufacturing operations."
Mr. Silverman earned his bachelor's degree in biology with
minors in chemistry and psychology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).
As of June 14, 2021, Mr. Silverman
will be granted an initial grant of 35,000 stock options.
These stock options will have an exercise price equal to the
closing price of the Company's common stock on the date of grant
and will be 25% vested on the date of grant, with the remaining 75%
vesting quarterly over a two-year period. These stock options
were granted as an inducement to Mr. Silverman entering into
employment with the Company in accordance with NASDAQ Listing Rule
5635(c)(4).
About TAVO™
OncoSec's gene therapy technology combines
TAVO™ (tavokinogene telseplasmid), a DNA plasmid-based
interleukin-12 (IL-12), with an intra-tumoral electroporation gene
delivery platform to achieve endogenous IL-12 production in the
tumor microenvironment that enables the immune system to target and
attack tumors throughout the body. TAVO™ has demonstrated a
local and systemic anti-tumor response in several clinical trials,
including the pivotal Phase 2b trial
KEYNOTE-695 for metastatic melanoma and the KEYNOTE-890 Phase 2
trial in triple negative breast cancer (TNBC). TAVO™ has
received both Orphan Drug and Fast-Track Designation by the U.S.
Food & Drug Administration for the treatment of metastatic
melanoma.
About OncoSec Medical Incorporated
OncoSec Medical
Incorporated (the "Company," "OncoSec," "we" or "our") is a
biotechnology company focused on developing cytokine-based
intratumoral immunotherapies to stimulate the body's immune system
to target and attack cancer. OncoSec's lead immunotherapy
investigational product candidate – TAVO™ (tavokinogene
telseplasmid) – enables the intratumoral delivery of DNA-based
interleukin-12 (IL-12), a naturally occurring protein with
immune-stimulating functions. The technology, which employs
electroporation, is designed to produce a controlled, localized
expression of IL-12 in the tumor microenvironment, enabling the
immune system to target and attack tumors throughout the body.
OncoSec has built a deep and diverse clinical pipeline
utilizing TAVO™ as a potential treatment for multiple cancer
indications either as a monotherapy or in combination with leading
checkpoint inhibitors; with the latter potentially enabling OncoSec
to address a great unmet medical need in oncology: anti-PD-1
non-responders. Results from recently completed clinical studies of
TAVO™ have demonstrated a local immune response, and subsequently,
a systemic effect as either a monotherapy or combination treatment
approach along with an acceptable safety profile, warranting
further development. In addition to TAVO™, OncoSec is identifying
and developing new DNA-encoded therapeutic candidates and tumor
indications for use with its new Visceral Lesion Applicator (VLA),
to target deep visceral lesions, such as liver, lung or pancreatic
lesions. For more information, please visit www.oncosec.com.
KEYTRUDA® is a registered trademark of Merck Sharp
& Dohme Corp., a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc.,
Kenilworth, N.J., U.S.
TAVO™ is a trademark of OncoSec Medical Incorporated.
Risk Factors and Forward-Looking Statements
This release, as well as other information provided from time to
time by the Company or its employees, may contain forward-looking
statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties that
could cause actual results to differ materially from those
anticipated in the forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements provide the Company's current
beliefs, expectations and intentions regarding future events and
involve risks, uncertainties (some of which are beyond the
Company's control) and assumptions. For those statements, we
claim the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking
statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform
Act of 1995. You can identify forward-looking statements by
the fact that they do not relate strictly to historical or current
facts. These statements may include words such as
"anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend,"
"may," "plan," "potential," "should," "will" and "would" and
similar expressions (including the negative of these terms).
Although we believe that expectations reflected in the
forward- looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee
future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements.
The Company intends these forward-looking statements to speak
only at the time they are published on or as otherwise specified
and does not undertake to update or revise these statements as more
information becomes available, except as required under federal
securities laws and the rules and regulations of the Securities
Exchange Commission ("SEC"). In particular, you should be
aware that the success and timing of our clinical trials, including
safety and efficacy of our product candidates, patient accrual,
unexpected or expected safety events, the impact of COVID-19 on the
supply of our candidates or the initiation or completion of
clinical trials and the usability of data generated from our trials
may differ and may not meet our estimated timelines. Please
refer to the risk factors and other cautionary statements provided
in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year
ended July 31, 2020 and subsequent
periodic and current reports filed with the SEC (each of which can
be found at the SEC's website www.sec.gov), as well as other
factors described from time to time in the Company's filings with
the SEC.
Company Contact
Brian
Leuthner
Chief Operating Officer
investors@oncosec.com
Media Contact
Patrick
Bursey
LifeSci Communications
+1-646-970-4688
pbursey@lifescicomms.com
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SOURCE OncoSec Medical Incorporated
