PDS Biotech Announces Retirement of Lauren V. Wood, M.D., and Appointment of Kirk V. Shepard, M.D., as Chief Medical Officer - Seite 2

Before his pharmaceutical industry career, Dr. Shepard served as a staff physician in the Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where he supervised numerous studies in oncology and symptom control. He has been published in more than 50 medical publications. Dr. Shepard holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and earned his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati Medical School. He completed his internship and internal medicine residency at Case Western Reserve University and fellowships in hematology and oncology at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Clinics.

“I’m excited to contribute to the development of PDS Biotech’s targeted immunotherapies which have generated impressive data underscoring their potential to revolutionize the treatment of cancer,” said Dr. Shepard. “I look forward to working with the team to advance PDS Biotech’s promising pipeline toward commercialization.”

The Company also announced today that on January 22, 2024, PDS Biotech granted nonstatutory stock options to Kirk Shepard, the Company’s new Chief Medical Officer, to purchase a total of 200,000 shares of the Company’s common stock as a material inducement to Dr. Shepard’s employment with PDS Biotech and in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4) and PDS Biotech’s 2019 Inducement Plan, as amended, which was adopted on June 17, 2019 and provides for the granting of equity awards to new employees of PDS Biotech.

The stock option has an exercise price of $4.49, the closing price of PDS Biotech’s common stock on January 22, 2024. The stock option vests over a four-year period, with one-quarter of the shares vesting on the first anniversary of the grant date and the remaining shares vesting monthly over the 36-month period thereafter, subject to continued employment with the company through the applicable vesting dates.

About PDS Biotechnology

PDS Biotech is a clinical-stage immunotherapy company developing a growing pipeline of targeted cancer and infectious disease immunotherapies based on our proprietary Versamune, Versamune plus PDS01ADC and Infectimune T cell-activating platforms. We believe our targeted immunotherapies have the potential to overcome the limitations of current immunotherapy approaches through the activation of the right type, quantity and potency of T cells. To date, our lead Versamune clinical candidate, PDS0101, has demonstrated the ability to reduce and shrink tumors and stabilize disease in combination with approved and investigational therapeutics in patients with a broad range of HPV16-associated cancers in multiple Phase 2 clinical trials and plan to advance into a Phase 3 clinical trial in combination with KEYTRUDA for the treatment of recurrent/metastatic HPV16-positive head and neck cancer in the first quarter 2024. Our Infectimune based vaccines have also demonstrated the potential to induce not only robust and durable neutralizing antibody responses, but also powerful T cell responses, including long-lasting memory T cell responses in pre-clinical studies to date. To learn more, please visit www.pdsbiotech.com or follow us on Twitter at @PDSBiotech.