MIAMI, July 23, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Longeveron Inc. (NASDAQ:LGVN) a clinical stage biotechnology company developing cellular therapy for life-threatening, rare pediatric and chronic aging-related conditions, today announced that Deborah D. Ascheim, M.D., has been elected to the Longeveron Board of Directors. Dr. Ascheim is a strategic biotech Chief Medical Officer and physician who has over 30 years of clinical and executive experience advancing breakthrough therapies, including gene, cell, and biologics, for rare, ultra-rare, and common diseases across multiple indications.

"I am delighted to welcome Deborah, with her impressive development track record with gene, cell and biologics, to the Board of Directors," said Dr. Joshua M. Hare, Executive Chairman and Chief Science Officer of Longeveron. "I look forward to working with her as we continue to advance our stem cell therapy laromestorcel. Our HLHS program represents our most advanced and near-term value catalyst. HLHS is a rare and life-threatening pediatric congenital heart condition with no approved drug therapies and significant mortality despite surgical intervention."

Dr. Ascheim commented, "I am delighted to join the Board of Directors of Longeveron at this exciting juncture in the Company’s stem cell clinical development history. Laromestrocel’s potential mechanisms of action—including anti-inflammatory, pro-vascular, and pro-regenerative effects—support its potential as a platform product with potential therapeutic applications across multiple high-value indications with profound unmet medical need."

Dr. Ascheim currently serves as the Fractional Chief Medical Officer at Rejuvenate Bio, Inc., a clinical stage biotech company developing gene therapies to treat age-related diseases in humans and dogs. She is the founder and president of d2a Ltd. where she currently works as an independent consultant providing strategic leadership, clinical and product development across a wide range of therapeutic areas and technologies, including gene and cell therapies, small molecules, pharmaceuticals, and diagnostic and therapeutic devices. Dr. Ascheim also serves on the Advisory Board of the Mass General Brigham Gene and Cell Therapy Institute. Before she joined Rejuvenate Bio, Inc. in 2023, Dr. Ascheim served as the Chief Medical Officer for StrideBio, Inc., a fully integrated patient-centric gene therapy company focused on creating and developing innovative genetic medicines for patients with devastating conditions. From 2020 to 2021, Dr. Ascheim worked as an independent consultant providing clinical development guidance for developing advanced generation gene therapies for rare diseases. Dr. Ascheim previously served as the Chief Medical Officer for Capricor Therapeutics Inc., a NASDAQ-listed company, where she, among other things, led clinical development strategy and execution, initiated and completed enrollment in Phase I/II DMD clinical trials, and was responsible for medical monitoring of all clinical trials. Dr. Ascheim’s clinical career was focused on heart failure cardiology. She was a member of the Heart Failure Center, Division of Circulatory Physiology faculty at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. During her academic tenure, Dr. Ascheim had over two decades of experience as a clinical researcher and trialist, serving either as the Principal Investigator or other leadership role on grant funded NIH and industry trials totaling more than $140 million. Dr. Ascheim served on the Board of Directors for Physicians for Human Rights from 2008 to 2023 and during her time served many roles including as the Chair to the Board of Directors and the Chair of the Nominating & Governance and Compensation Committees. Dr. Ascheim earned her B.A. from Wellesley College and her M.D. from NYU Grossman School of Medicine.

About Longeveron Inc.

Longeveron is a clinical stage biotechnology company developing regenerative medicines to address unmet medical needs. The Company’s lead investigational product is laromestrocel (Lomecel-B^®), an allogeneic mesenchymal stem cell (MSC) therapy product isolated from the bone marrow of young, healthy adult donors. Laromestrocel has multiple potential mechanisms of action encompassing pro-vascular, pro-regenerative, anti-inflammatory, and tissue repair and healing effects with broad potential applications across a spectrum of disease areas. Longeveron is pursuing four pipeline indications: hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS), Alzheimer’s disease, Pediatric Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) and Aging-related Frailty. Laromestrocel development programs have received five distinct and important FDA designations: for the HLHS program - Orphan Drug designation, Fast Track designation, and Rare Pediatric Disease designation; and, for the AD program - Regenerative Medicine Advanced Therapy (RMAT) designation and Fast Track designation. For more information, visit www.longeveron.com or follow Longeveron on LinkedIn, X, and Instagram.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, which reflect management’s current expectations, assumptions, and estimates of future operations, performance and economic conditions, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that could cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from those anticipated, expressed, or implied by the statements made herein. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "contemplate," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expects," "intend," "looks to," "may," "on condition," "plan," "potential," "predict," "preliminary," "project," "see," "should," "target," "will," "would," or the negative thereof or comparable terminology, although not all forward-looking statements contain these words, or by discussion of strategy or goals or other future events, circumstances, or effects. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements in this release include, but are not limited to, the ability of our clinical trials to demonstrate safety and efficacy of our product candidates, and other positive results; our ability to successfully transition toward a more capital-efficient, asset-light operating model; our ability to secure one or more strategic licensing partnerships for our stem cell therapy laromestrocel in our development programs; the ability to reach alignment with the FDA on a potential path toward regulatory approval; receipt of trial results and other available evidence sufficient to support the Company filing a BLA following the readout of top-line results of the ELPIS II data; the timing and focus of our ongoing and future preclinical studies and clinical trials, and the reporting of data from those studies and trials; market and other conditions, our cash position and need to raise additional capital, the difficulties we may face in obtaining access to capital, and the dilutive impact it may have on our investors; our financial performance, and ability to continue as a going concern; the period over which we estimate our existing cash and cash equivalents will be sufficient to fund our future operating expenses and capital expenditure requirements; the ability of our clinical trials to demonstrate safety and efficacy of our investigational product candidates, and other positive results; the timing and focus of our ongoing and future preclinical studies and clinical trials, and the reporting of data from those studies and trials; the size of the market opportunity for certain of our investigational product candidates, including our estimates of the number of patients who suffer from the diseases we are targeting; our ability to scale production and commercialize the investigational product candidate for certain indications; the success of competing therapies that are or may become available; the beneficial characteristics, safety, efficacy and therapeutic effects of our investigational product candidates; our ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval of our investigational product candidates in the U.S. and other jurisdictions; our plans relating to the further development of our investigational product candidates, including additional disease states or indications we may pursue; our plans and ability to obtain or protect intellectual property rights, including extensions of existing patent terms where available and our ability to avoid infringing the intellectual property rights of others; the need to hire additional personnel and our ability to attract and retain such personnel; and our estimates regarding expenses, future revenue, capital requirements and needs for additional financing.

Further information relating to factors that may impact the Company’s results and forward-looking statements are disclosed in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Longeveron’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2025, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on March 17, 2026, its Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, and its Current Reports on Form 8-K. The Company operates in highly competitive and rapidly changing environment; therefore, new factors may arise, and it is not possible for the Company’s management to predict all such factors that may arise nor assess the impact of such factors or the extent to which any individual factor or combination thereof, may cause results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of the date of this press release based on information available as of the date of this press release, are inherently uncertain, and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation, other than imposed by law, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise.

Investor and Media Contact:

Derek Cole

Investor Relations Advisory Solutions

derek.cole@iradvisory.com

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