Clearside Biomedical Appoints Dr. George Lasezkay as President and Chief Executive Officer

ALPHARETTA, Ga., March 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clearside Biomedical, Inc. (Nasdaq:CLSD), a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and delivering treatments that restore and preserve vision for people with serious back of the eye diseases, announced today that George Lasezkay, Pharm.D., J.D., has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer. He will continue to serve on the Board of Directors. This appointment was effective March 1, 2020.

William Humphries, Chairman of the Clearside Board of Directors, said, “Clearside has made meaningful progress during George’s tenure as Interim CEO. We are very pleased that he has agreed to take the position of President and CEO, given his proven ability to focus and lead the organization in a complex environment. In less than one year, we have concluded preclinical studies to advance CLS-AX (axitinib injectable suspension) into the clinic and have added multiple partnerships for our suprachoroidal space injection platform, including two key licensing agreements for the commercialization of our late stage asset, XIPERE (triamcinolone acetonide suprachoroidal injectable suspension). These accomplishments provide strong momentum for Clearside as we build on the value of our proprietary suprachoroidal injection platform.”

“I am excited about having the opportunity to continue working closely with the Clearside team and I am grateful to the Board for their confidence and support,” said George Lasezkay, Pharm.D., J.D., President and CEO, Clearside Biomedical. “We are well underway in executing our two-pronged strategy of building an internal research and development pipeline in areas such as novel small molecules and gene therapy, as well as creating external collaborations with other companies to enable them to deliver therapies in a targeted, repeatable, non-surgical manner via the suprachoroidal space. I look forward to continued interactions with the medical and investor communities.”

About George Lasezkay, Pharm.D., J.D.

Dr. Lasezkay has an accomplished history of success in the life sciences industry. For the past 15 years, he has served as an independent director on the boards of a number of domestic and foreign emerging biopharmaceutical companies, including serving as a director of Clearside since August 2017. Beginning in April 2019, Dr. Lasezkay served as the Company’s Interim CEO.