SAN DIEGO, Oct. 2, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Effective
September 26, 2017, the Board of
Directors (the "Board") of Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq:
SRNE) appointed each of Dorman
Followwill and David Lemus as
an independent director of the Company.
Mr. Followwill will serve as a member of the Compensation
Committee of the Board and Mr. Lemus will serve as a member of the
Audit Committee of the Board.
Dorman Followwill, age 54, has
been Senior Partner, Transformational Health at Frost &
Sullivan, a business consulting firm involved in market research
and analysis, growth strategy consulting and corporate training
across multiple industries, since 2016. Prior to that time, he
served in various roles at Frost & Sullivan, including Partner
on the Executive Committee managing the P&L of the business in
Europe, Israel and Africa, and Partner overseeing the Healthcare
and Life Sciences business in North
America, since initially joining Frost & Sullivan to
help found the Consulting practice in January 1988. Mr. Followwill has more than 30
years of organizational leadership and management consulting
experience, having worked on hundreds of consulting projects across
all major regions and across multiple industry sectors, each
project focused around the strategic imperative of growth. He
obtained his BA from Stanford
University in The Management of Organizations in 1985.
Commenting on his appointment, Dorman
Followwill stated: "I am honored to join the Sorrento Board
for many reasons, but primarily because of the strength of the
firm's portfolio. I am compelled by the platform to target
intracellular immunotherapy, one of the Holy Grails in drug
discovery, as well as the potential franchise molecule,
resiniferatoxin, to address currently unmanageable pain, including
cancer pain in terminal patients. These novel therapies will
prove to truly help patients all over the world, driving
significant value both medically and financially."
David Lemus, age 54, currently
serves as a non-executive board member of BioHealth Innovation,
Inc., The MIT Club of Washington
DC and Proteros BioScience GmbH. Most recently, from
January 2016 to May 2017, he served as Interim Chief Financial
Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Medigene AG, a
publicly-listed German biotechnology company focused on
T-Cell-Receptor based immunotherapies. Prior to that time, at Sigma
Tau Pharmaceuticals, Inc., he served in the roles of Chief
Executive Officer, Chief Operating Officer, and V.P. Finance in the
period from 2011 to 2015. Before this, Mr. Lemus launched
Germany's first biotech IPO,
serving as Chief Financial Officer and Executive V.P. of MorphoSys
AG from 1998 to 2011. Prior to his role at MorphoSys AG, he held
various positions, including Operations Manager and Controller
(Pharma International Division) at Hoffman La Roche, Group
Treasurer of Lindt & Spruengli AG and Treasury Consultant for
Electrolux AB. Mr. Lemus received an M.S. from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan
School of Management in 1988 and a B.S. in Accounting from
the University of Maryland in 1984. Mr.
Lemus is also a certified public accountant licensed in the State
of Maryland.
Also commenting on his appointment, Dave
Lemus added, "I am very excited to join Sorrento as the
company moves to the next stage of its growth, focusing its unique
immuno-oncology approach on progressing its R&D pipeline,
and building its commercial and manufacturing capabilities."
"We are very pleased with the appointments of Dorman and Dave,"
stated Dr. Henry Ji, Chairman and
Chief Executive Officer at Sorrento. "We believe their expertise
and outstanding contributions in their respective fields will prove
invaluable as we launch into the next stage of our development.
With a strong focus towards progressing our current assets through
clinical stages, streamlining our operations and maximizing the
value of past ventures, we look forward to their guidance and
leadership in helping us to provide novel therapeutic
approaches for cancer patients and building outstanding shareholder
value in the process."
About Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc.
Sorrento is a clinical stage, antibody-centric,
biopharmaceutical company developing new therapies to turn
malignant cancers into manageable and possibly curable diseases.
Sorrento's multimodal multipronged approach to fighting cancer is
made possible by its' extensive immuno-oncology platforms,
including key assets such as fully human antibodies ("G-MAB™
library"), clinical stage immuno-cellular therapies ("CAR-T"),
intracellular targeting antibodies ("iTAbs"), antibody-drug
conjugates ("ADC"), and clinical stage oncolytic virus
("Sephrevir®").
Sorrento's commitment to life-enhancing therapies for cancer
patients is also demonstrated by our effort to advance a
first-in-class (TRPV1 agonist) non-opioid pain management small
molecule in Resiniferatoxin ("RTX") and ZTlido. Resiniferatoxin is
completing a phase IB trial in terminal cancer patients. ZTlido is
in regulatory review following NDA re-submission.
For more information visit www.sorrentotherapeutics.com
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements related
to Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. under the safe harbor provisions of
Section 21E of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995
and subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual
results to differ materially from those projected. Forward-looking
statements include statements about Sorrento's ability to leverage
the expertise of management, including members of its Board of
Directors, employees and partners to assist the company in
the execution of its strategies; Sorrento's advances made in
developing RTX and human monoclonal antibodies using its
proprietary G-MAB fully human antibody technology, if any;
Sorrento's use of G-MAB generated CARs to enhance the potency
of its CAR.TNKs; and other matters that are described in Sorrento's
Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016, and subsequent Quarterly
Reports on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission, including the risk factors set forth in those filings.
Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these
forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this
release and we undertake no obligation to update any
forward-looking statement in this press release except as required
by law.
Sorrento® and the Sorrento logo are registered trademarks of
Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc.
ZTlido™ and G-MAB™ are trademarks owned by Scilex
Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Sorrento, respectively.
Seprehvir®, is a registered trademark of Virttu Biologics
Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of TNK Therapeutics, Inc. and
part of the group of companies owned by Sorrento Therapeutics,
Inc.
All other trademarks are the property of their respective
owners.
© 2017 Sorrento Therapeutics, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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