Precision BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: DTIL), a clinical stage
gene editing company developing ARCUS®-based ex vivo allogeneic CAR
T and in vivo gene editing therapies, today announced promotions
and organizational changes that impact responsibilities within the
company’s senior leadership team reporting to Michael Amoroso,
Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Cindy Atwell, formerly Senior Vice President of Business
Development and Alliance Management has been promoted to Chief
Business Officer and will continue to oversee the Business
Development and Alliance functions with added responsibility for
Project and Portfolio Management. Jeff Smith, Ph.D., co-founder and
formerly Chief Technology Officer, has been promoted to Chief
Research Officer and will assume responsibility for the management
and direction of the company’s research programs and report
directly to the CEO. Derek Jantz, Ph.D., co-founder and Chief
Scientific Officer will focus his time partnering with Michael
Amoroso in formulating company strategy and managing relationships
with external stakeholders, including current and potential
collaboration partners. In addition, Dr. Jantz informed the Board
of Directors that he was stepping away from the Board to focus his
time, effort and energy on his new role, which reduces the number
of management members serving on the Board and strengthens the
company’s corporate governance.
“Derek, Jeff and Cindy have made significant contributions to
Precision, each demonstrating commitment to the company, to our
partners, and importantly to patients around the world in need of
new treatment options. Derek and Jeff have built Precision from the
ground up, optimizing the ARCUS gene editing platform for
therapeutic use and building capable research and development teams
across our cell and gene editing businesses. Cindy has also played
an instrumental role in Precision’s growth by successfully closing
gene editing research collaboration agreements with top-tier
industry partners, Novartis and Lilly,” said Michael Amoroso, CEO.
“The demonstrated leadership and strategic focus of Derek, Jeff and
Cindy have significantly contributed to the company’s ability to
advance our in vivo and ex vivo gene editing candidates. With these
new organizational changes at this time in our company life cycle,
Precision BioSciences is poised to continue taking important steps
toward becoming a commercial stage company to improve the lives of
patients in need.”
“I’m very excited about the next chapter for Precision
BioSciences and enthusiastic about my new role,” said Dr. Jantz. “I
look forward to continuing to work closely with Michael in
formulating the company’s strategy as well as forging strong
external collaborations to drive continued success of ARCUS, which
we believe to be the most precise and versatile gene editing
platform. As a co-developer of the technology, I derive great
personal satisfaction working toward bringing ARCUS-based therapies
to patients in need. As such, I’m very much looking forward to
advancing our first in vivo editing programs into the clinic while
our lead CAR T program moves steadily in the direction of drug
approval.”
Dr. Jantz has led the development of Precision’s allogeneic CAR
T and in vivo editing platforms since co-founding Precision
BioSciences. Trained as a protein engineer, Derek was an early
developer of zinc finger technology and spent most of his early
research career designing proteins for genome editing applications.
He has a Ph.D. in biophysical chemistry from Johns Hopkins
University School of Medicine and conducted his postdoctoral work
in the Biochemistry department at Duke University. He is an
inventor on more than 50 gene editing patents and has over a dozen
gene editing publications.
Dr. Smith is one of the true pioneers in genome editing and has
made some of the key observations that led to the first successful
engineered editing nucleases. Jeff received his graduate degree
from Johns Hopkins while developing and characterizing custom
nucleases for genome engineering. Continuing his work in protein
engineering at Duke University, Jeff helped create the foundation
for Precision’s ARCUS genome editing technology. He is an inventor
on more than 75 foundational, issued patents involving the
production and use of genome editing tools.
Ms. Atwell joined Precision BioSciences in 2019 as Vice
President of Business Development. Now, as the Chief Business
Officer she leads a team responsible for forming new partnerships,
managing current collaborations, and shaping internal business
processes as well as program management. She has 22 years of
experience in the pharmaceutical industry, with most of her time
spent in business development and commercial roles. Over the course
of her career, Cindy has led or participated in the negotiation of
a number of transactions, totaling over $10 billion in value. This
includes the Novartis-Precision sickle cell collaboration as well
as the Lilly-Precision gene editing strategic collaboration. Prior
to Precision BioSciences, she led oncology and drug delivery deals
as well as strategy projects at Halozyme. Over the years, Cindy has
held various roles within the business development and commercial
organizations at AbbVie, Amylin, and Impax. She also participated
in discovery research at a start-up biotechnology company early in
her career. Cindy holds a BS in biochemistry and molecular biology
from the Pennsylvania State University and an MBA from the
University of California, San Diego’s Rady School of
Management.
About Precision BioSciences, Inc.
Precision BioSciences, Inc. is a clinical stage biotechnology
company dedicated to improving life (DTIL) with its novel and
proprietary ARCUS® genome editing platform. ARCUS is a highly
precise and versatile genome editing platform that was designed
with therapeutic safety, delivery, and control in mind. Using
ARCUS, the company’s pipeline consists of multiple ex vivo
“off-the-shelf” CAR T immunotherapy clinical candidates and several
in vivo gene editing candidates designed to cure genetic and
infectious diseases where no adequate treatments exist. For more
information about Precision BioSciences, please visit
www.precisionbiosciences.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within
the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of
1995. All statements contained in this press release that do not
relate to matters of historical fact should be considered
forward-looking statements, including, without limitation,
statements regarding the clinical development and expected efficacy
and benefit of Precision’s product candidates and the benefits of
ARCUS and potential expansion and development using ARCUS. In some
cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as
“aim,” “anticipate,” “approach,” “believe,” “contemplate,” “could,”
“estimate,” “expect,” “goal,” “intend,” “look,” “may,” “mission,”
“plan,” “possible,” “potential,” “predict,” “project,” “should,”
“target,” “will,” “would,” or the negative thereof and similar
words and expressions.
Forward-looking statements are based on management’s current
expectations, beliefs and assumptions and on information currently
available to Precision. Such statements are subject to a number of
known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions, and actual
results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in
the forward-looking statements due to various important factors,
including, but not limited to: Precision’s ability to become
profitable; Precision’s ability to procure sufficient funding and
requirements under its current debt instruments and effects of
restrictions thereunder; risks associated with raising additional
capital; Precision’s operating expenses and its ability to predict
what those expenses will be; Precision’s limited operating history;
the success of its programs and product candidates in which it
expends its resources; Precision’s limited ability or inability to
assess the safety and efficacy of its product candidates;
Precision’s dependence on its ARCUS technology; the initiation,
cost, timing, progress, achievement of milestones and results of
research and development activities, preclinical studies and
clinical trials; public perception about genome editing technology
and its applications; competition in the genome editing,
biopharmaceutical, and biotechnology fields; Precision’s or its
collaborators’ ability to identify, develop and commercialize
product candidates; and other important factors discussed under the
caption “Risk Factors” in Precision’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q
for the quarterly period ended June 30, 2022, to be filed with the
SEC, which are accessible on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov and
the Investors page of Precision’s website under SEC Filings at
investor.precisionbiosciences.com.
All forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this
press release and, except as required by applicable law, Precision
has no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking
statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new
information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220902005076/en/
Investor Contact: Alex Kelly Chief Financial Officer
Alex.Kelly@precisionbiosciences.com
Media Contact: Maurissa Messier Senior Director,
Corporate Communications
Maurissa.Messier@precisionbiosciences.com
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