Vaccitech expands management team with hires including CMO and CFO

OXFORD, England, Oct. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Vaccitech Limited, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing T cell vaccines and immunotherapies designed to treat and prevent infectious disease and cancer, today announces the appointment of three new senior leaders across its clinical, financial and manufacturing operations during a period of significant growth for the company.

Margaret (Meg) Marshall, M.D. becomes Vaccitech's full-time Chief Medical Officer, having worked as a consultant for the company since June 2020. Dr. Marshall has over 25 years of experience in the preclinical and clinical development of cell and antibody-based immunotherapy for infectious disease and cancer. Prior to joining Vaccitech, she held directorship positions in the clinical research departments of Kyowa Kirin, Kite Pharma and Pfizer. Dr. Marshall will lead the clinical development planning and execution of the company's programs.

"It has been a great experience working for Bill and the team, and I'm thrilled to officially be on board to lead the clinical development of our exciting immunotherapy and vaccine programs. Our T cell-inducing platform has great potential to be transformative, and to deliver patient benefits in chronic infectious diseases such as HBV and HPV as well as in oncology indications such as prostate cancer and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)," said CMO Dr. Meg Marshall.

Georgy Egorov joins Vaccitech as Chief Financial Officer. Mr. Egorov brings more than 20 years of senior finance, strategy, investment banking and capital markets experience as well as extensive knowledge of investor relations and corporate development to the company. Mr. Egorov joins Vaccitech from Exscientia, a global leader in AI drug discovery, where he was CFO and Board member. Mr. Egorov also worked in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and UBS, where he was involved in numerous M&A transactions and equity and debt financings.

CFO Georgy Egorov comments, "Despite the pandemic, 2020 has been an incredible year for investing in life sciences, with unprecedented amounts of capital raised. I look forward to ensuring Vaccitech stays on a firm financial footing as we expand our operations and seek to develop our T cell immunotherapy and vaccine product candidates from the clinic through to market, if approved."

In addition, Simon Alvis, Ph.D., joins Vaccitech as Vice President Manufacturing. Since 1999, Dr. Alvis has cultivated a broad expertise across process, analytical and formulation development of viral and recombinant protein biological drug products. He has great experience and strategic vision for the regulatory and manufacturing requirements necessary to move biologic product candidates forward towards commercialization. He joins Vaccitech after leading viral manufacturing programs at PsiOxus Therapeutics.

VP of Manufacturing, Simon Alvis adds, "We are planning for success and scale up at Vaccitech, and I am delighted to bring my manufacturing expertise to the company as we expand our clinical pipeline. I believe we can really make a difference to patients' lives by treating and preventing infectious diseases and cancer."

Bill Enright, CEO of Vaccitech, said, "I am delighted to welcome aboard Meg, Georgy and Simon; their wealth of experiences driving product candidate development, financial management and manufacturing will be key to helping Vaccitech move its important immunotherapies forward with the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes in infectious diseases and oncology."

About Vaccitech Ltd.

Vaccitech is a clinical stage T cell vaccine and immunotherapy company developing products to treat infectious diseases and cancer. The company's proprietary biologics platform, comprising Chimpanzee Adenovirus (prime) and MVA (boost) induces, boosts and maintains CD8+ and CD4+ T cells, as well as antibodies. The Vaccitech prime-boost platform is licensed from one of the most prestigious vaccine research institutes in the world, the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford. In partnership with the Jenner, Vaccitech co-invented and led aspects of the early development of a SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) vaccine, based upon its proprietary Chimpanzee Adenovirus Oxford, or ChAdOx, platform. The COVID-19 vaccine, now known as AZD1222, has been licensed to AstraZeneca and is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials. 

Vaccitech has multiple therapeutic programs in the clinic including a Phase 1/2 program for chronic HBV and HPV, a Phase 2 program for prostate cancer, as well as a program poised to enter the clinic for NSCLC. The company is also co-developing prophylactic products for MERS coronavirus and Herpes Zoster with international collaborators. Vaccitech is backed by leading institutions including GV, Sequoia Capital China, Korea Investment Partners and Oxford Sciences Innovation. 

For further details, please contact:

Vaccitech

Pippa Rathbone

Email: pippa.rathbone@vaccitech.co.uk  

Katja Stout, Scius Communications

Email: katja@sciuscommunications.com