OncoSec Appoints Industry Leading Electroporation Device Expert, Jeffrey Silverman, as Vice President of Product Engineering
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
[email protected]
Media Contact
Patrick Bursey
LifeSci Communications
+1-646-970-4688
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