Alpine Immune Sciences Appoints Zelanna Goldberg, M.D., M.A.S. as Chief Medical Officer

Alpine Immune Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALPN), a leading clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on developing innovative treatments for cancer and autoimmune/inflammatory diseases, today announced the appointment of industry veteran Zelanna Goldberg, M.D., M.A.S. as its Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Goldberg joins Alpine from Iovance Biotherapeutics, where she was Senior Vice President, Clinical Science.

“We are very enthusiastic about the addition of Zelanna to the Alpine team, particularly as we pursue an expanding scope of clinical development activities across oncology and inflammatory disease indications,” said Stanford Peng, M.D., Ph.D., President and Head of Research and Development at Alpine. “Zelanna is an experienced clinical development executive with a commitment to helping patients with life-threatening and debilitating diseases.”

“I am thrilled to join Alpine and lead the clinical strategy and development of the company’s extremely promising pipeline, including ALPN-101, ALPN-202, and ALPN-303,” said Dr. Goldberg. “I look forward to integrating within the research and development team to continue to advance these unique therapies and those that are coming next from Alpine’s directed evolution platform to meaningfully improve the lives of patients with cancer and life-threatening auto-immune diseases.”

Dr. Goldberg brings over 20 years of industry and clinical practice experience, including strategic and/or operational responsibility for multiple therapeutic products such as dacomitinib (Vizimpro), palbociclib (Ibrance), and avelumab (Bavencio). Most recently, Dr. Goldberg was Senior Vice President, Clinical Sciences at Iovance Biotherapeutics, where she oversaw multiple aspects of the clinical development program of lifileucel (LN-145). Prior to Iovance, Dr. Goldberg held roles of increasing responsibility at Sunesis, Oxigene and Pfizer, where she was the global clinical lead for multiple assets. Prior to entering industry, Dr. Goldberg was an Associate Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the University of California, Davis Medical Center.

Dr. Goldberg received her M.D. degree from University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. Dr. Goldberg completed her residency in Radiation Oncology at Ontario Cancer Institute/Princess Margaret Hospital-University of Toronto, and her post-doctoral training in radiosensitizing drugs at Stanford University.

Disclosure of Inducement Grant under Nasdaq Listing Rules

The compensation committee of Alpine's board of directors granted Dr. Goldberg an option to purchase 160,000 shares of common stock. The option will vest with respect to 25% of the shares underlying the option on the one-year anniversary of Dr. Goldberg’s employment start date of June 1, 2021, and the remaining 75% of the shares underlying the option will vest in equal monthly installments over the 36-month period following the one-year anniversary of Dr. Goldberg’s employment start date, subject to her continued service to Alpine through each relevant vesting date. In addition, pursuant to the terms of Alpine’s change of control and severance policy, if there is a change of control and, upon or during the 12 months after the change of control, Dr. Goldberg’s employment is terminated either (i) by Alpine without cause or (ii) by Dr. Goldberg for good reason, the option will become fully vested and exercisable. The option has a ten-year term and an exercise price of $10.29, equal to the per share closing price of Alpine's common stock as reported by Nasdaq on June 1, 2021.