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SalioGen Therapeutics Strengthens Management with Key Additions to Leadership Team to Advance Its Gene Coding Platform- Sung You, M.S., MBA, appointed as Chief Business and Strategy Officer CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 28, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SalioGen Therapeutics, a privately held biotechnology company developing durable and broadly applicable genetic medicines through Gene Coding, today announced that the Company has strengthened its management team with multiple leadership appointments of renowned experts in their respective fields. Sung You, M.S., MBA, will join as Chief Business and Strategy Officer, Nancy L. Craig, Ph.D., will join as Senior Vice President of Genetic Engineering, and Sandeep Nema, Ph.D., will join as Senior Vice President of Technical Operations. “We are fortunate to welcome these industry leaders to SalioGen, all of whom have already made deep impacts on the fields of genetic medicine and biotechnology,” said Ray Tabibiazar, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of SalioGen. “Sung brings unparalleled experience in healthcare strategy, finance and life science company-building to SalioGen. Sung’s unique background, which intersects science, medicine and business, will be invaluable. Nancy is one of the foremost experts on the fundamentals and applications of mobile genetic elements. Nancy’s decades of research and discoveries have built the knowledge base on which we now draw to develop the company’s next-generation genetic therapies. Sandeep has a wealth of background in shepherding novel therapeutics in a broad spectrum of modalities through scale-up and clinical trials. Together and alongside our current management team, they will be instrumental at this critical period as we prepare in vivo proof-of-concept studies and IND-enabling studies to explore the potential of SalioGen’s Gene Coding approach.” Ms. You currently serves as Managing Partner at PBM Capital, a healthcare-focused investment firm that has supported the earliest iterations of gene therapy companies, where she evaluates new investment opportunities and provides capital markets and business development support for its portfolio companies. Prior to joining PBM Capital, she served as Vice President in the Healthcare Investment Banking group at Morgan Stanley, where she led the executions of M&A and capital raising transactions for large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Prior to her time at Morgan Stanley, she ran clinical research in the Neuroendocrine Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. Ms. You holds an A.B. in Genetics, Cell and Developmental Biology from Dartmouth College, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and an M.S. from the joint Harvard Medical School – MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. In her position at SalioGen, Ms. You will guide corporate and clinical strategy, focusing the company’s broadly applicable technology platform toward opportunities where it can offer significant impact as a new tool in the field of genetic medicine. Dr. Craig is widely regarded as a pioneer in the study of mobile genetic elements, the basis for SalioGen’s Gene Coding technology. A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 2010, she currently serves as Professor Emerita in the Department of Moleculr Biology & Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she has directed a research group focused on identifying mobile elements and studied their molecular mechanisms since 1992. She was also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1992-2015. Previously, Dr. Craig held a faculty position in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Craig is the lead author of “Molecular Biology: Principles of Genome Function”, published by Oxford University Press and now in its third edition and also the editor of “Mobile DNA II” and “Mobile DNA III,” published by the American Society for Microbiology, and widely considered to be the definitive volumes on mobile genetic elements. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institutes of Health with a focus on mechanism of genomic integration. She earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Cornell University for research which focused on cellular responses to DNA damage including the induction of a mobile genetic element. Dr. Craig also holds an A.B in Biology and Chemistry from Bryn Mawr College. At SalioGen, Dr. Craig will direct the development and optimization of SalioGen’s EDIT platform. In addition to her role as Senior Vice President of Genetic Engineering and Mobile Elements, Dr. Craig will continue to serve as the Chairman of SalioGen’s scientific advisory board, to which she was appointed in 2020. Dr. Nema joins SalioGen after a highly impactful tenure of over 20 years at Pfizer, where he most recently served as Executive Director of Biotherapeutics Pharmaceutical Science, overseeing all biologics candidates from pre-proof-of-concept through Phase 3 clinical trial initiation. He has extensive experience in mRNA-based vaccines, gene therapy, novel drug delivery systems including lipid nanoparticles and CMC development for biologics. He has been involved with more than 100 IND and IMPD filings and numerous regulatory authority interactions. Dr. Nema earned a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, Memphis, College of Graduate Health Sciences, where he studied the encapsulation of proteins in liposomes. He earned a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree from Banaras Hindu University. As head of technical operations at SalioGen, Dr. Nema will lead product development, manufacturing, quality and regulatory affairs for SalioGen’s EDIT-based therapeutic candidates. About SalioGen Therapeutics SalioGen Therapeutics is advancing Gene Coding to develop durable, broadly applicable genetic medicines, initially using its Exact DNA Integration Technology (EDIT) platform. EDIT is a genome engineering technology that is mammal-derived, for use in potentially curative non-viral gene therapy. SalioGen is focused on developing durable, safe and affordable non-viral gene therapy to more patients with inherited diseases that are beyond what is addressable with current gene therapies, beginning with inherited macular degeneration and inherited lipid disorders. For more information, please visit www.saliogen.com, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Forward-Looking Statements Corporate Contact: Media Contact:
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