Agenus Appoints C. Evan Ballantyne as Chief Financial Officer LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)

Appoints C. Evan Ballantyne as Chief Financial Officer

LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 17, 2015--Agenus Inc. (NASDAQ:

AGEN), an immunology company developing innovative treatments for

cancers and other diseases, today announced the appointment of C. Evan

Ballantyne as the Company's Chief Financial Officer, effective

immediately. Mr. Ballantyne will be responsible for all aspects of the

Company's financial, accounting, investor relations and corporate

communication functions.

"We are pleased to welcome Evan as our Chief Financial Officer," said

Garo H. Armen, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of Agenus. "Evan has had a

distinguished career, and we look forward to his contributions to the

continued growth of our company."

"This is a very exciting time for Agenus, and I look forward to working

with the management team as the company continues to advance its

immuno-oncology platform technologies and product candidate pipeline and

further develop its partnership opportunities," stated Mr. Ballantyne.

Mr. Ballantyne brings more than 30 years of financial and operations

experience to Agenus. Most recently, Mr. Ballantyne served as the Chief

Financial Officer at Synthetic Biologics, Inc., a publicly-traded

biotechnology company, from February 2012 to May 2015. From August 2006

to April 2011, Mr. Ballantyne served as the Executive Vice President and

Chief Financial Officer at Clinical Data, Inc., a publicly-traded

biopharmaceutical company that was acquired by Forest Laboratories, Inc.

for $1.3 billion. Mr. Ballantyne has also served as the Chief Financial

Officer at a number of private medical technology companies, including

Avedro, Inc. and ZymeQuest, Inc. Earlier in his career, he served as

Vice President and Chief Operating Officer for ACNielsen Corporation -

Europe Middle East & Africa, and he held the Chief Financial Officer

position there as well for two years. He began his career at The Dun &

Bradstreet Corporation where he held several senior financial positions.

Mr. Ballantyne earned a B.A. from the University of Western Ontario, and

took a post-graduate degree in Business Administration with Honors from

the University of Windsor.

In connection with Mr. Ballantyne's appointment, Agenus granted Mr.

Ballantyne an inducement equity award in accordance with NASDAQ Listing

Rule 5635(c)(4). This award, which is outside of Agenus' 2009 Equity

Incentive Plan, was approved by Agenus' board of directors, including

all of its independent directors, as an inducement material to Mr.

Ballantyne entering into employment with the Company. The award to Mr.

Ballantyne consists of nonqualified options to purchase 150,000 shares

of Agenus common stock with a 10-year term and an exercise price equal

to the closing price of Agenus' common stock on the first day of Mr.

Ballantyne's employment with Agenus. Twenty-five percent of the options

vest on each of the one-year, two-year, three-year and four-year

anniversaries of Mr. Ballantyne's start date, subject to Mr.

Ballantyne's continued employment with Agenus through each such vesting

Agenus is an immunology company developing a series of Checkpoint

Modulators for the treatment of patients with cancer, infectious

diseases, and other immune disorders, heat shock protein (HSP)-based

vaccines, and immune adjuvants. These programs are supported by three

separate technology platforms. Agenus' internal and partnered checkpoint

modulator programs target GITR, OX40, CTLA-4, LAG-3, TIM-3, PD-1 and

other undisclosed programs. The company's proprietary discovery engine

Retrocyte DisplayTM is used to generate fully human and

humanized therapeutic antibody drug candidates. The Retrocyte Display

platform uses a high-throughput approach incorporating IgG format human

antibody libraries expressed in mammalian B-lineage cells. Agenus

recently acquired a powerful yeast antibody display platform termed

SECANT , developed by Celexion, LLC. SECANT allows rapid generation of

soluble, full-length human antibodies. SECANT and Agenus' mammalian

antibody display platform have complementary strengths and further

bolster Agenus' abilities to generate and optimize fully human

monoclonal antibodies. Agenus' heat shock protein-based vaccines have

completed Phase 2 studies in newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme,

and in the treatment of herpes simplex viral infection; the heat shock

protein-based vaccine platform can generate personalized as well as off

the shelf products. The company's QS-21 Stimulon adjuvant platform is

extensively partnered with GlaxoSmithKline and with Janssen Sciences

Ireland UC and includes several candidates in Phase 2 trials, as well as

shingles and malaria vaccines which have successfully completed Phase 3

clinical trials. For more information, please visit www.agenusbio.com,

or connect with the company on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+;

information that may be important to investors will be routinely posted

Forward-Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements that are made

pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the federal securities laws,

including statements regarding the research and development efforts of

Agenus and its collaboration partners. These forward-looking statements

are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results

to differ materially. These risks and uncertainties include, among

others, the factors described under the Risk Factors section of our most

recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and

Exchange Commission for the period ended March 31, 2015. Agenus cautions

investors not to place considerable reliance on the forward-looking

statements contained in this release. These statements speak only as of

the date of this press release, and Agenus undertakes no obligation to

update or revise the statements, other than to the extent required by

law. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their

entirety by this cautionary statement.

Andrea Rabney/ Jamie Maarten, 212-600-1902