Kalgene Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Senior leadership positions were filled at biopharma and life sciences companies across the globe. Companies tapped new blood to support their ongoing strategic priorities. Third Harmonic Bio: Edward R. Conner was appointed chief medical officer of Third Harmonic Bio, which launched earlier this year. Conner joins Third Harmonic Bio from Locanabio, where he served as CMO. Before that, he was site lead and division head of medical and development for Astellas Gene Therapies. Prior to that, he served as CMO and senior vice president of Audentes Therapeutics, and before that, he served as CMO of Sangamo Therapeutics. Earlier in his career, he was a medical director at Genentech. Axtria: Jaswinder "Jassi" Chadha, chief executive officer of Axtria, is a recipient of the 2022 PM360 ELITE 100 Award. The PM360 ELITE Awards recognize individuals in 20 categories in the life sciences industry who exemplify the following traits: Exceptional Leaders, Innovators, Transformers, and Entrepreneurs (ELITE). PM360 recognized Chadha for his work as an entrepreneur and visionary risk-taker in building Axtria as a company that has filled voids and answered the unmet needs of the life sciences industry. XORTX Therapeutics: Anthony Giovinazzo was appointed chairman of the board of directors at XORTX. He was most recently the co-inventor, CEO and director of Cynapsus Therapeutics. He is currently executive chairman of Kalgene Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company focused on Alzheimer's disease. He is also a director of Titan Medical Inc., a developer of the Enos System, a robotics-assisted single port surgery system. Dotmatics: Larry Samuelson was named chief legal officer, and Neil Frye was named chief people officer. Samuelson joins the company with more than 20 years of corporate legal experience. Before Dotmatics, he served as senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary of Cvent, an event technology SaaS company. Frye was previously the CPO of Alto Pharmacy. Prior to Alto, he spent more than four years leading global recruiting and HR operations/technology at Dropbox. Akili Interactive: Matt Franklin will join the company in the newly created role of president and chief operating officer. Most recently, Franklin served as general manager of the precision oncology business unit at Exact Sciences. Previously, Franklin was the chief commercial officer at Thrive Earlier Detection Corp. In addition, Franklin served as the CBO for ArcherDX. RDCC: Amanda Malakoff was named executive director of the Rare Disease Company Coalition. Before joining the RDCC, Malakoff was senior director of member relations for the National Association of Manufacturers. Malakoff previously held client relations roles at Bloomberg Government and the Advisory Board Company. Surescripts: Frank Harvey was named CEO. He succeeds Tom Skelton, who is retiring. Harvey joins Surescripts from ATLS Investments, LLC., where he led private equity investing in healthcare technology companies. Previously, Harvey served as CEO of Mirixa Corporation and Liberty Medical Supply, Inc. Inozyme Pharma, Inc.: Kurt Gunter was named chief medical officer. He most recently served as CMO of cell therapy and head of regulatory affairs at Athenex. Prior to Athenex, Gunter served as CMO at Kuur Therapeutics and previously held positions of increasing responsibility at Hospira, Inc., including vice president, clinical development, and global medical director for hematology-oncology. Before Hospira, Gunter held positions at Zymequest, ViaCell, and Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc. Athira Pharma: Athira formed its scientific advisory board. Members include John Olichney, Anton Porsteinsson, Marwan Sabbagh, Lon Schneider, Pierre Tariot and Paul Winner. The SAB, chaired by Athira CMO Hans Moebius, will offer expert scientific and clinical perspectives to guide the development of Athira's pipeline of novel, small molecule compounds. Better Therapeutics: Frank Karbe was named president and CEO. He will begin on July 5. Karbe most recently served as president and chief financial officer of Myovant Sciences. He also served for over a decade as executive vice president and CFO at Exelixis, Inc. Earlier in his career, he worked as an investment banker for Goldman Sachs & Co. Cytovia Therapeutics: Luca Scavo was named CFO, and James Priour was appointed chief product officer. Scavo previously served as CFO at Evelo Biosciences, Inc. Before Evelo, Scavo was the CFO of Roche Diagnostics North America. Before that, he held global leadership roles across the Roche organization for more than 20 years. Scavo also served as CFO at AstraZeneca, Spain and worked in various finance roles at Roche's offices in Austria, New Jersey, and Switzerland. Since 2020, Priour has served as chief commercial officer at Zymeworks, Inc. Prior to Zymeworks, he was global marketing lead for Kyprolis at Amgen and was later appointed to global product general manager for the entire myeloma franchise. He also held leadership roles for Amgen's ex-U.S. operations and previously served as general manager of Hungary for Bristol Myers Squibb. Priour started his career in 1992 with Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals, where he held various commercial leadership positions based out of their France, Belgium, Luxemburg and U.S. corporate offices. Pillar Biosciences: Vincent Ricci was tapped as CFO of Pillar Biosciences. He joins Pillar Biosciences from Davidson Kempner Capital Management LP, where he was responsible for equity investments in the life sciences sector. Previously, Ricci was a Portfolio Manager for Alliance Bernstein, where he managed investments across the global healthcare industry. Nacuity Pharmaceuticals: Nancy Holekamp and Richard L. Lindstrom were appointed to the Nacuity scientific advisory board. Holekamp is director of Retina Services at Pepose Vision Institute. Before that, she was a Professor of Clinical Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Lindstrom is founder and Attending Surgeon Emeritus at Minnesota Eye Consultants, senior lecturer and foundation trustee emeritus at the University of Minnesota. Athenex, Inc.: Darrel P. Cohen was named CMO of Cell Therapy. He is replacing Kurt Gunter, who departed for Inozyme. Cohen is a hematologist/oncologist and has held leadership positions of increasing responsibility at Pharmacia, Sanofi-Aventis, and Pfizer, including vice president of Late-Phase Clinical Development at Pfizer Oncology. More recently, Cohen was head of clinical development at EUSA Pharma and then CMO at Biosight Pharmaceuticals. Apexigen, Inc.: William Duke was named CFO. Duke joins Apexigen from Kaleido, where he served as CFO. Prior to this, Duke was CFO of Pulmatrix, Inc. and served as CFO of Valeritas, Inc. Duke also was senior director of finance at Genzyme Corporation and director of finance/accounting at Haemonetics Corporation. iSpecimen Inc.: Evan Cox was named vice president of product management. Cox will manage the growth and future development of the iSpecimen Marketplace platform. Prior to joining iSpecimen, Cox held several key senior management roles at Definitive Healthcare Corp., most recently as associate vice president. Cox co-founded DSE Analytics, a company that used natural language processing to integrate qualitative and quantitative information. He also served as senior product manager of Data Analytics and Research at Press Ganey Associates and Product Lead of Clinical Data Management at WebMD. Inipharm: Chuhan Chung was named CMO. Chung joins Inipharm after serving as executive director and global development lead at Gilead Sciences. Before joining Gilead, Chung served as an associate professor at the Yale University School of Medicine, Section of Gastroenterology & Hepatology, where he maintained an independently funded lab focused on conducting translational research in liver disease. Aurion Biotech: Michael Goldstein was named president and CMO of Aurion. Before joining Aurion, Goldstein served as president and CMO of Ocular Therapeutix. Before that, Goldstein was the CMO of Applied Genetic Technologies Corp. Before joining AGTC, Goldstein held several positions of increasing responsibility with Eleven Biotherapeutics, including chief medical officer and vice president of clinical research. Metrion Biosciences: Benedetta Montagnini was named head of European business development for Metrion. Montagnini was previously business development manager at Eurofins Discovery and DiscoveRx and, prior to that, account manager for the Industrial BioProcessing Division at Invitrogen. AGC Biologics: Tony Fraij, AGC Biologics' Longmont general manager, was appointed to the Colorado BioScience Association Board of Directors

CALGARY, Alberta, June 06, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- XORTX Therapeutics Inc. ("XORTX" or the “Company”) (NASDAQ: XRTX | TSXV: XRTX | Frankfurt: ANU), a late stage clinical pharmaceutical company focused on developing innovative therapies to treat progressive kidney disease, is pleased to welcome and appoint Mr. Anthony Giovinazzo to the Board of Directors and as Chair of the Board. Dr. Allen Davidoff, CEO of XORTX stated, “I am pleased to welcome Anthony to the board of directors and as Chair of the Board. Mr. Giovinazzo’s experience speaks for itself with decades of industry experience, including extensive patent portfolio building, pharmaceutical industry partnering, technology commercialization and company building experience. As Chair and a key member of the board of directors we believe that Anthony’s contributions will further strengthen XORTX’s ability to grow a high value pharmaceutical company.” Mr. Anthony Giovinazzo stated, “I am delighted to join the board of XORTX and to become its Chair. The Company is pursuing a repositioning of a previously Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) reviewed drug for certain kidney diseases that is about to start a Phase 3 registration trial, a shorter and manageable process under the FDA Act, 505 (b) (2) regulatory path. In addition to designing a well thought out Phase 3 trial, Allen and his team have also chosen to undertake a dialogue with the FDA, through a Special Protocol Assessment to align the Company’s path to potential approvability with the FDA’s approvable endpoints." About Anthony Giovinazzo Mr. Anthony J. Giovinazzo, MBA, C.Dir. and A.C.C., has 43 years of total work experience, is an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property, drug development and commercialization, including numerous licensing agreements, with more than 25 years’ experience in Central Nervous System diseases. He was most recently, the co-inventor, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Cynapsus Therapeutics, a NASDAQ listed specialty pharmaceutical company that developed the first successful sublingual apomorphine thin film strip for Parkinson’s disease. The drug today known as Kynmobi, was approved for commercialization by the FDA on May 21, 2020. On June 15, 2020, Health Canada approved Kynmobi for sale in Canada. Mr. Giovinazzo was a co-inventor of the drug, built the leadership team, set the strategy, raised US $136 million including an over-subscribed IPO and NASDAQ listing. He led the negotiations with several pharmaceutical companies that resulted in the CAD $841 million all cash acquisition by Sunovion Pharmaceuticals (Dainippon Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals), a 120% premium to market close on the day of announcement. Mr. Giovinazzo is the current Executive Chair of Kalgene Inc., a Canadian/American private specialty pharmaceutical company focused on Alzheimer’s disease. Kalgene’s lead program KG207 is currently being evaluated as a potential best-in-class drug candidate for early to moderate Alzheimer’s. KG207 is currently an injection of a man made large molecule that has been engineered to have significant penetration into the brain, to significantly reduce/eliminate brain hemorrhaging (a serious side effect of monoclonal antibodies approved and in development) for Alzheimer’s, and to selectively scavenge Toxic Oligomers (the known species of human proteins that kill neurons in the memory cascade). He is also a director of Titan Medical Inc., a developer of the Enos System, a robotics assisted single port surgery system. Mr. Giovinazzo is the co-author of several peer reviewed papers and author of several papers on strategic and financing issues in the biopharmaceutical industry. During his career he was involved in several licensing and M&A transactions. In addition, he has raised in excess of US $825 million in private and public equity. In 2014, he was a Canadian finalist in Life Sciences for the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year and in 2017, he was the recipient of the Finance Monthly Game Changers award as well as having been chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Bloom Burton Award, which honors a single winner from several candidates, as the best of the best in Canadian Life Sciences as judged by a panel of US experts. He is a Chartered Director and Audit Committee Certified, both from The Directors College, a degree granting affiliate of McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. He also completed the Leadership and Strategy in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech from Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts in 2006, a Masters of Business Administration from IMD, Geneva, Switzerland in 1986, a Graduate Certificate Studies in Canadian Law from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Ontario in 1984, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Accounting from McMaster University in 1978. Contemporaneous with this appointment, XORTX also announces that it has granted in accordance with the Company’s stock option plan an aggregate of 394,822 options to purchase common shares of the Company, 150,000 to Anthony Giovinazzo, 94,822 to Allen Davidoff and 30,000 to each of Paul Van Damme, Bill Farley, Ian Klassen, Jaqueline Le Saux and Raymond Pratt. The options granted are exercisable at $1.60 for a period of five years. About XORTX Therapeutics Inc. XORTX Therapeutics Inc. is a pharmaceutical company with two clinically advanced products in development – XRx-008 for Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease (ADPKD), XRx-101 for acute kidney and other acute organ injury associated with Coronavirus / COVID-19 infection and XRx-225 is a pre-clinical stage program for Type 2 Diabetic Nephropathy (T2DN). XORTX is working to advance its clinical development stage products that target aberrant purine metabolism and xanthine oxidase to decrease or inhibit production of uric acid. At XORTX, we are dedicated to developing medications to improve the quality of life and future health of patients. Additional information on XORTX is available at www.xortx.com. For further information, please contact: Allen Davidoff, CEONick Rigopulos, Director of Communications adavidoff@xortx.com or +1 403 455 7727nick@alpineequityadv.com or +1 617 901 0785 The TSX Venture Exchange and Nasdaq have neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein. Forward Looking Statements This press release may contain express or implied forward-looking statements pursuant to Canadian and U.S. Federal securities laws. These forward-looking statements and their implications are based on the current reasonable expectations of the management of XORTX only, and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in such forward-looking statements. Except as otherwise required by law, XORTX undertakes no obligation to publicly release any revisions or updates to these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events. More detailed information about the risks and uncertainties affecting XORTX is contained in the Company’s most recently filed Annual Information Form and the Management Discussion and Analysis for its most recent financial reporting period filed on the Company’s SEDAR profile (www.sedar.com) and under the heading “Risk Factors” in XORTX’s Registration Statement on Form F-1 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) available on the SEC's website, www.sec.gov.