Tessera Therapeutics Appoints Industry Leaders Elliott Sigal & Mary Rozenman to Board of Directors

New Board Members Will Help Advance ‘Gene Writing’ Platform and Mission to Cure Disease by Writing in the Code of Life

BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Tessera Therapeutics, a biotech company pioneering Gene Writing, announced today the appointment of Elliott Sigal, M.D., Ph.D. and Mary Rozenman, Ph.D. to the company’s Board of Directors. This announcement represents the latest key development for Tessera, following the March appointments of David Davidson, M.D. as Chief Medical and Development Officer, Hari Pujar, Ph.D. as Chief Operating Officer, and Lin Guey, Ph.D. as Senior Vice President of Rare Diseases Program Strategy and Operations, and a $230 million Series B fundraising round in January.

“Elliott and Mary bring phenomenal leadership, experience, and creativity to Tessera’s Board of Directors,” said Geoffrey von Maltzahn, Ph.D., CEO and Co-Founder of Tessera. “Elliott has overseen more than a dozen new medications on their way to market, and Mary has guided major strategic, fundraising, and partnership efforts. Together, they offer decades of experience that will help us rapidly grow Tessera and to fulfill our mission of curing diseases by writing in the code of life.”

“The next frontier in medicine will be therapeutics that cure and provide enduring protection against disease. I am excited to welcome Elliott and Mary to the team at Tessera and look forward to working closely with them as we advance Tessera’s Gene Writing platform and pioneer the future of genetic medicine,” said Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Co-founder and Chairman of the Board, Tessera and CEO of Flagship Pioneering.

Dr. Sigal brings decades of clinical experience in drug discovery, drug development, and corporate strategy to Tessera’s Board of Directors. He currently serves as a senior advisor to the healthcare team of New Enterprise Associates and is a member of the Board of Directors for Adaptimmune Therapeutics, Surface Oncology, Vir Therapeutics, and Affinia. He co-chairs the Scientific Advisory Board for Amgen and is a member of the Scientific Steering Committee for the Sean Parker Institute for Cancer Immunology. He previously served on the Board of Directors for the gene therapy company, Spark Therapeutics. Dr. Sigal is a former Executive Vice President and Director of Bristol-Myers Squibb, and served as the company’s Chief Scientific Officer and President of R&D from 2004 until 2013. Under his leadership, fourteen new medicines came to market in multiple therapeutic areas including virology, oncology, immunology, psychiatry, metabolic diseases and cardiovascular disease. During his tenure, Dr. Sigal was named the best R&D chief in the pharmaceutical industry by Scrip Intelligence. Dr. Sigal received his M.D. from the University of Chicago and trained in Internal Medicine and Pulmonary Medicine at UCSF. Prior to medical school, he received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from Purdue University.

“Tessera’s Gene Writing technology represents a major breakthrough in the field with potential to fundamentally change the future of medicine across many therapeutic areas,” said Dr. Elliott Sigal. “I am honored to join the Board and look forward to helping guide the company through continued growth and innovation.”

Dr. Rozenman brings more than 15 years of scientific expertise, company building, and transactions leadership in the biotech industry to Tessera’s Board of Directors. She serves as the CFO and CBO of insitro, leading strategic and operational finance and accounting strategy, business development, investor relations, corporate communications, as well as project and portfolio management. Prior to insitro, Dr. Rozenman served as the Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Strategy at Aimmune Therapeutics, where she oversaw business development and partnerships with companies including Regeneron/Sanofi and Nestle Health Science and supported the company’s strategic finance and investor relations efforts. Across her time at both insitro and Aimmune, Dr. Rozenman has raised more than $1 billion in capital through a range of public and private transactions, including leadership of Aimmune’s IPO in 2015. She received her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University and her B.A. in Biochemistry and Russian Literature from Columbia University.

“Tessera is pioneering Gene Writing at a pivotal moment for drug discovery, as we rapidly expand our understanding of the genetic drivers of disease. Tessera’s work to write into the genome may open opportunities to cure and prevent a broad range of diseases. I am thrilled to join the Board during such an exciting time in the company’s growth and look forward to partnering with Geoff and the world class Tessera team,” said Dr. Mary Rozenman.

For more information on Tessera, including how Gene Writing works, partnership opportunities, and job openings, visit www.tesseratherapeutics.com.

About Tessera Therapeutics

Tessera Therapeutics is an early-stage life sciences company pioneering Gene Writing, a new biotechnology designed to offer scientists and clinicians the ability to write small and large therapeutic messages into the genome, thereby curing diseases at their source. Gene Writing holds the potential to become a new category in genetic medicine, building upon recent breakthroughs in gene therapy and gene editing while eliminating important limitations in their reach, utilization, and efficacy. Tessera Therapeutics was founded by Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences innovation enterprise that conceives, resources, and develops first-in-category companies to transform human health and sustainability.

About Flagship Pioneering

Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category life science platform companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has, through its Flagship Labs unit, applied its unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over $90 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship has deployed over $2.4 billion in capital toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $19 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 41 transformative companies, including Axcella Health (NASDAQ: AXLA), Codiak BioSciences (NASDAQ: CDAK) Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FHTX), Indigo Ag, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Sigilon Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SGTX).

Contacts

Sarah Chan, [email protected]