• Board member Steven Gillis will assume role of Chairman
• Seasoned biopharmaceutical executives bring deep preclinical and corporate development expertise to advance therapeutic focus of preventing cancer relapse and metastasis

NEW YORK, Aug. 6, 2019 /PRNewswire/ — HiberCell, a biotechnology company developing therapeutics focused on preventing cancer relapse and metastasis, today announced the appointment of Colin Goddard to the company’s Board of Directors. The company also announced that Steven Gillis will assume the role of Chairman.

“Steve and Colin are industry veterans with a proven record of leading innovative life sciences companies,” said Alan Rigby, Ph.D., co-founder, president and chief scientific officer of HiberCell. “We’re pleased to welcome them to our leadership team as we focus on addressing the significant unmet medical need represented by metastatic cancer.”

Colin Goddard, Ph.D., currently serves as Executive Chairman and chief executive officer of Coferon, Inc. Previously, Dr. Goddard served as CEO of OSI Pharmaceuticals, Inc., from 1998 until its $4 billion acquisition by Astellas in 2010. He serves as Chairman of Mission Therapeutics and is a director of biopharmaceutical companies Endocyte, Azelon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and PanOptica, Inc. He is actively involved in organizations that promote the advancement of cancer therapeutics and the biotechnology industry including serving on the Boards of the New York Biotechnology Association (Chairman 2000-2002), Cancer Care of Long Island and is a member of the American Association of Cancer Research. Dr. Goddard received a B.S. in biochemistry from the University of York, in York, United Kingdom and a Ph.D. in cancer pharmacology from Aston University in Birmingham, United Kingdom.

Gillis is a managing director of ARCH Venture Partners, where he focuses on the evaluation of new life science technologies and the development of ARCH’s biotechnology portfolio companies. He is a director of Homology Medicines, Inc., Pulmatrix, VBI Vaccines and Takeda Pharmaceutical Company. He also serves as Chairman or Director of a number of ARCH’s private biotechnology companies.

Dr. Gillis was a founder and director of Corixa Corp. and served as CEO from its inception and as its Chairman from 1999 until its acquisition in 2005 by GlaxoSmithKline. Prior to Corixa, Dr. Gillis was a founder and director of Immunex Corp., the most successful venture-funded biotech company in the state of Washington. From 1981 until his departure in 1994, he served as Immunex’s Director of Research and Development, Chief Scientific Officer, and as CEO of Immunex’s R&D subsidiary. Dr. Gillis was interim CEO of Immunex following its majority purchase by American Cyanamid Co. and remained a member of the board until 1997. Amgen, Inc., acquired Immunex in 2002. Dr. Gillis is an immunologist by training with over 300 peer-reviewed publications in the areas of molecular and tumor immunology.

About HiberCell
HiberCell is the first company exclusively focused on tumor dormancy detection and therapeutics. The company is developing first-in-class therapeutics that target dormant disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) from solid and liquid cancers, with the ultimate goal of preventing cancer relapse and metastasis. For more information, please visit https://www.hibercell.com.