Tampa, FL, August 18, 2022 - Mirror Biologics, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company today announced the appointments of Dr. Michael Kauffman, Mr. Gregory Schiffman and Dr. Taneli Jouhikainen as independent, non-executive members of the Board of Directors. These new directors bring to us a wealth of experience in management of drug development programs and will provide us with expertise in strategic, organizational and operational planning in support of our efforts to advance our lead AlloStim® immunotherapy product candidate.
Dr. Michael Har-Noy, Founder, Acting CEO stated: “We are delighted to welcome the new independent directors to the Mirror team. We look forward to collaborating closely with these new members to leverage their vast experience as we make plans to transition from our current research focus to late stage clinical development. We are planning significant expansion of our manufacturing, clinical development, regulatory and manufacturing teams as well as our facilities in the near future. We expect to benefit greatly from the experiences of our new board members that have all previously participated in managing this type of transition.”
The following is a description of the background of each new Director:
Michael Kauffman, MD, PhD: Dr. Kauffman was the cofounder and CEO of Karyopharm Therapeutics (NASDAQ) from inception to commercialization. Dr. Kauffman currently serves as lead director of Verastem Oncology, Inc. (NASDAQ). He also serves on the boards of Kezar (NASDAQ), Adicet (NASDAQ), and BiVictriX Therapeutics (LON). Previously, he was the Chief Medical Officer of Onyx Pharmaceuticals Inc, (NASDAQ, acquired by Amgen) where he was a key leader in the development of Kyprolis® (carfilzomib), a novel proteasome inhibitor approved for treatment of refractory myeloma. Dr Kauffman was Chairman of Proteolix (acquired by Onyx) prior to becoming Chief Medical Officer and was the past President and Chief Executive Officer of EPIX Pharmaceuticals, Inc (reverse merged with Predix Pharmaceuticals, Inc). He played a key role in the Velcade® Development Program at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and held a number of senior positions at Millennium Predictive Medicine and Biogen. Dr Kauffman received his MD and PhD from Johns Hopkins Medical School, trained at Beth Israel and Massachusetts General Hospitals and is board certified in internal medicine.
Greg Schiffman, MBA: Mr. Schiffman currently serves as CFO of AbSci (NASDAQ). He previously served as Executive Vice President and CFO of Dendreon Corporation, which secured marketing authorization from the FDA and the European Commission for the world's first cell-based immunotherapy. His responsibilities at Dendreon included implementing and managing the manufacturing and supply chain. He also has previously served in the role of CFO at several publicly-traded biotechnology companies, including Iovance (NASDAQ:IOVA), StemCells (NASDAQ) and Affymetrix (NASDAQ), as well as serving as CFO at Vineti, a private SaaS company supporting supply chain logistics for cellular therapies. Prior to these roles, he was Vice President and Controller at Applied BioSystems where he managed global financial operations during the Human Genome Project. Mr. Schiffman received an M.B.A. from Northwestern University and holds a bachelor's degree in accounting from De Paul University.
Taneli Jouhikainen, MD, PhD, MBA. Dr. Jouhikainen has extensive experience in pharmaceutical industry leadership and commercialization of pharmaceutical products. Dr. Jouhikainen is the founder and CEO of Altius Therapeutics, a pulmonary gene and cell therapy company. Previously, he was a Co-Founder of Savara (NASDAQ), a public orphan lung disease company and served as its President and Chief Operating Officer from 2009 to 2020. From 2006 to 2009, he served at Akela Pharma Inc., (TSX) a public clinical stage specialty pharmaceutical company focused on orphan drugs and inhalation products, first as Head of Corporate Development and subsequently as CEO until the company’s merger with Nventa Biopharmaceuticals. From 2004 to 2006, he served as President of LAB Pharma Oy, and Head of the Drug Development Business Unit of its parent company, LAB International, Inc., a public clinical stage specialty pharmaceutical company. From 2001 to 2004, he served at Focus Inhalation Oy, a clinical stage specialty pharmaceutical company focusing on inhaled products, first as Vice President of Business Development & Strategy and subsequently as President & CEO, until the merger of Focus Inhalation with LAB International, Inc. From 1994 to 2000, he served at Schering AG, a global pharmaceutical company, first as Research Manager, and subsequently as Head of Clinical Development. Dr. Jouhikainen holds an MD degree, and a PhD degree in the field of hematology and immunology from the University of Helsinki and an MBA from the Helsinki School of Economics.
The new directors jointly stated: “We are delighted to have the opportunity to join Mirror at this exciting time in the drug development process. There remains substantial unmet medical needs to address metastatic tumors that have minimal or no response to currently available therapies; and, for those whose tumors have become refractory to these therapies. We believe that Mirror has developed a novel and possibly complementary immunological approach for attacking refractory metastatic cancers, as well as a novel immunomodulatory approach for protecting the elderly against severe viral infections and diseases associated with an aging immune system. We believe our collective experience will help guide management decisions and avoid pitfalls as the Company enters this critical phase of the drug development cycle.”
About Mirror Biologics, Inc:
Mirror Biologics, Inc. was incorporated in the State of Delaware on November 5th, 2018. We are a clinical stage immunotherapy company targeting the development of treatments for cancer, infectious disease and healthy aging indications using a platform technology called the “Mirror Effect®”. We specialize in the discovery, clinical testing and manufacturing of next generation therapeutic and prophylactic immunotherapy vaccine products which incorporate living immune cells as active ingredients. We are driven by compassion for patients suffering from incurable diseases and highly toxic therapies, such as chemotherapy, to develop non-toxic, affordable alternative treatment options with curative or life-extending activity that can be made widely accessible and distributed to out-patient clinics and community oncology offices world-wide.
Our headquarters are located in Tampa, Florida where we operate a blood and tissue donor center, a drug depo distribution center, a clinical research center with supporting immunological and molecular biological laboratories and conduct bioengineering research related to development of large-scale “artificial lymph node” bioreactors for commercial manufacturing of living immune cells. We also operate a wholly-owned subsidiary, Mirror Biologics, Ltd., an Israeli company, located in Jerusalem, where we conduct aseptic cell processing, formulation and cryo-storage operations in compliance with good manufacturing practices (“GMP”) for the production of living AlloStim® immune cells for use in clinical trials. We also operate a drug depo, blood processing and clinical site management operation through our wholly-owned subsidiary, Mirror Biologics (Malaysia), Snd Bhn, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and contract for these same services through our consultants, Immunovative (Thailand) Co., Ltd. in Bangkok, Thailand. We are currently focused on advancing two late stage clinical programs to the milestone of Biological Licensing Application (BLA) filings: (1) in the USA, our target is metastatic colorectal cancer; and, (2) in SE Asia, our target is advanced liver cancer. We are also conduction a Phase I/II clinical study in USA evaluating our “Universal Anti-Viral Immunomodulatory Vaccine” technology.
Contact
Mirror Biologics, Inc.
Dr. Michael Har-Noy
619-227-4872
www.mirrorbio.com
