Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:VYGR), a clinical-stage gene
therapy company focused on developing life-changing treatments for
severe neurological diseases today announced the appointment of G.
Andre Turenne as president and chief executive officer of Voyager
effective July 16, 2018, at which time he will also become a member
of the Voyager Board of Directors. Mr. Turenne joins Voyager with
extensive strategic business development and commercial leadership
experience, including nearly 12 years at Genzyme and Sanofi where
he most recently served as Sanofi’s senior vice president, global
head, business development and licensing responsible for partnering
activities across all of Sanofi’s business units. As announced
earlier this year, Steven M. Paul, M.D., Voyager’s outgoing
president and chief executive officer, will continue to serve on
Voyager’s Board of Directors and as a member of Voyager’s Science
& Technology Committee following his retirement as president
and chief executive officer, also effective July 16, 2018.
“Andre’s proven leadership, strategic vision,
strong track record of commercial and business development
experience, and deep understanding of our programs and gene therapy
platform make him an ideal fit to lead Voyager through its exciting
next stage of development,” said Mark Levin, chairman of Voyager’s
Board of Directors. “We look forward to working with Andre as he
transitions into this role and continuing Voyager’s mission of
becoming the leading gene therapy company focused on severe
neurological diseases. With Andre on board, we want to thank Steve
for his extraordinary contributions in the founding and leadership
of Voyager and we look forward to Steve’s continuing contributions
as a Director.”
“Voyager is in a very strong position with our
pivotal gene therapy clinical trial for Parkinson’s disease about
to begin and having recently been granted RMAT designation by the
FDA,” said Steven M. Paul, M.D. “Our vector and delivery
optimization efforts have benefitted our Parkinson’s disease
program as well as our preclinical pipeline programs targeting
Huntington’s disease, ALS, and Friedreich’s ataxia. Our
collaborations with AbbVie and Sanofi Genzyme are also progressing
nicely and I am proud to have co-founded the company and helped
assemble the talented and dedicated team at Voyager that has
achieved these impressive milestones, and I look forward to
supporting Andre in his new role.”
“I am honored to join the Voyager team at this
important time in the company’s evolution and help progress its
potentially transformative programs,” said Andre Turenne. “During
my career, I have had the opportunity to evaluate many types of
exciting companies, technologies, and therapeutic approaches, and
to integrate and grow these businesses over time. Having been
involved with Voyager from an early stage during the collaboration
with Sanofi Genzyme, I am thrilled to now be joining this team at
the leading edge of developing potentially ground-breaking
therapies for patients with severe neurological diseases.”
Mr. Turenne joins Voyager from Sanofi where, as
senior vice president, global head, business development and
licensing, he was responsible for partnering activities across all
of Sanofi units including Sanofi Pasteur, Sanofi Genzyme,
Diabetes-Cardiovascular, General Medicines, and Consumer Health,
and also served as Chair of the Sanofi Transaction Committee. He
previously served as global head of strategy and business
development at Genzyme following its acquisition by Sanofi. In
addition to his extensive business development transactions and
leadership positions, Mr. Turenne has held senior leadership
positions at the country level as general manager of Sanofi Genzyme
Australia/New Zealand with P&L responsibility for that region
and at the global franchise level as head of commercial operations
for the Renal and Endocrinology division, which achieved one
billion dollars in annual revenues during his time. Mr. Turenne
began his career in industry as a consultant at Kendall Strategies,
the consulting arm of Feinstein Kean Healthcare, now part of
Ogilvy.
Mr. Turenne holds a B.A. from Kalamazoo College
and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Voyager has entered into an employment agreement
with Mr. Turenne that, among other things, provides for the grant
of a non-statutory stock option outside of the Company’s 2015 Stock
Option and Incentive Plan as an inducement material to Mr.
Turenne’s entering into employment with Voyager in accordance with
Nasdaq Stock Market Listing Rule 5635(c)(4). The stock option
to purchase 650,000 shares of the Company’s common stock is being
granted effective as of Mr. Turenne’s start date as president and
chief executive officer. The stock option grant was approved
by the Compensation Committee and each of the independent directors
of Voyager in accordance with Nasdaq Stock Market Listing Rule
5635(c)(4). The stock option will have an exercise price per
share equal to the closing price per share of Voyager’s common
stock on The Nasdaq Global Select Market on the effective date of
grant. The stock option will have a ten-year term and will
vest over a four-year period, with 25% of the shares underlying the
option award vesting on the first anniversary of the date of grant
and the remaining 75% of the shares underlying the option award to
vest monthly over the subsequent 36-month period.
About Voyager Therapeutics
Voyager Therapeutics is a clinical-stage gene
therapy company focused on developing life-changing treatments for
severe neurological diseases. Voyager is committed to advancing the
field of AAV gene therapy through innovation and investment in
vector engineering and optimization, manufacturing and dosing and
delivery techniques. Voyager’s pipeline focuses on severe
neurological diseases in need of effective new therapies, including
Parkinson’s disease, a monogenic form of ALS called SOD1,
Huntington’s disease, Friedreich’s ataxia, neurodegenerative
diseases related to defective or excess aggregation of tau protein
in the brain including Alzheimer’s disease and severe, chronic
pain. Voyager has broad strategic collaborations with Sanofi
Genzyme, the specialty care global business unit of Sanofi, AbbVie,
and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Founded
by scientific and clinical leaders in the fields of AAV gene
therapy, expressed RNA interference and neuroscience, Voyager
Therapeutics is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more
information, please visit www.voyagertherapeutics.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking
statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The
Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal
securities laws. The use of words such as “may,” “might,” “will,”
“would,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,”
“estimate,” “undoubtedly,” “project,” “intend,” “future,”
“potential,” or “continue,” and other similar expressions are
intended to identify forward-looking statements. For example, all
statements Voyager makes regarding the initiation, timing, progress
and reporting of results of its preclinical programs and clinical
trials and its research and development programs, its ability to
advance its AAV-based gene therapies into, and successfully
initiate, enroll and complete, clinical trials, the potential
clinical utility of its product candidates, its ability to continue
to develop its gene therapy platform, its ability to develop
manufacturing capability for its products and successfully
transition its manufacturing process, its ability to perform under
existing collaborations with, among others, Sanofi Genzyme and
AbbVie and to add new programs to its pipeline, its ability to
enter into new partnerships or collaborations, and the timing or
likelihood of its regulatory filings and approvals, are forward
looking. All forward-looking statements are based on estimates and
assumptions by Voyager’s management that, although Voyager believes
to be reasonable, are inherently uncertain. All forward-looking
statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause
actual results to differ materially from those that Voyager
expected. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others,
the initiation and conduct of preclinical studies and clinical
trials; the availability of data from clinical trials; the
expectations for regulatory submissions and approvals; the
continued development of the gene therapy platform; Voyager’s
scientific approach and general development progress; and the
availability or commercial potential of Voyager’s product
candidates. These statements are also subject to a number of
material risks and uncertainties that are described in Voyager’s
most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities
and Exchange Commission, as updated by its subsequent filings with
the Securities and Exchange Commission. Any forward-looking
statement speaks only as of the date on which it was made.
Voyager undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any
forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
Investor Relations:
Matt Osborne
Vice President of Investor Relations & Corporate Communications
857-259-5353
mosborne@vygr.com
Media:
Julie Normart
W2O Group
+1 (415) 946-1087
jnormart@w2ogroup.com
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