Full Press Release Details
Allarity Therapeutics Strengthens Board of Directors
with Appointment of Three Accomplished Biotechnology Executives
2023) - Allarity Therapeutics, Inc. (Allarity or the Company), a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company developing novel oncology
therapeutics together with drug-specific DRP companion diagnostics for personalized cancer care, today announced the appointment
of three seasoned biotechnology executives, Laura Benjamin, Ph.D., Robert Oliver, M.B.A., Joseph Vazzano,
C.P.A., to its Board of Directors, effective August 1, 2023.
The appointment of these new Board Directors, which fills existing
vacancies, completes the Company's restructuring of its Board, following listing on NASDAQ in late 2021. Additionally, the appointment
of these independent Directors is expected to bring the Company back into compliance with the Nasdaq Stock Market's continued listing
requirements relating to Board and Committee independence.
"We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Benjamin, Mr. Oliver, and Mr.
Vazzano to our Board of Directors," said Jerry McLaughlin, Allarity's Chairman of the Board. "Their combined expertise, industry
knowledge, and diverse backgrounds will strengthen our Board's strategic guidance for Allarity. Their appointment results in the assembly
of a highly qualified and experienced Board to support the Company's development efforts towards clinical, and ultimately commercial,
Laura Benjamin, Ph.D.
Laura is the Founder and currently serves as Chief Executive Officer
of OncXerna Therapeutics, Inc. Prior to this role, Laura was a Vice President in Oncology at Eli Lilly, where she led cancer discovery
and translational discovery teams in New York and Indianapolis. She worked closely with the clinical teams to support multiple clinical
programs, most notably the ramucirumab program from Phase 2 to commercial launch in colorectal, gastric, and non-small cell lung
cancers. Additionally, she helped build the cross-functional initiative to discover, test and advance biomarker development in oncology
clinical trials across the portfolio. Prior to joining Lilly, Laura spent 10 years as a tenure track professor in the Department of Pathology
at Harvard Medical School. During this time, she supported and mentored Ph.D., postdoctoral, and medical students with NIH and foundation
grants. When she left Harvard in 2009, Laura was an Associate Professor and was co-Director of the Vascular Biology Center at the
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Both Laura's postdoctoral work and academic research at Harvard focused on cellular and
molecular mechanisms driving cancer, with a particular interest in the role of the microenvironment on cancer progression and response
to targeted therapies. Laura received a B.A. in Biology from Barnard College, Columbia University and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology
from the University of Pennsylvania.
Therapeutics, Inc. I 24 School Street, 2nd Floor I Boston, MA I U.S.A.
I NASDAQ: ALLR I www.allarity.com
Robert (Bob) Oliver, M.B.A.
Bob most recently served as President and CEO of Otsuka America Pharmaceutical,
Inc., (OAPI). He was responsible for overseeing OAPI's diverse and growing product portfolio across the neuroscience, cardiovascular,
oncology, and medical device markets. Prior to joining Otsuka, Bob was Vice President and Global Business Manager for Oncology at
Wyeth (now Pfizer.) In his roles there, Bob also provided leadership to the Vaccines Division and Primary Care while eventually assuming
responsibility for U.S. Commercial Operations, including Puerto Rico and the Caribbean. He began his career in pharmaceuticals with
Johnson & Johnson, holding positions of increasing responsibility in sales, marketing, business operations and corporate management.
Bob also serves as a member of the Board for Academic Fellows at Eastern University, where he mentors doctoral candidates. Bob has extensive
board experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, currently serving on boards for Exelixis, PysBio Therapeutics, and Hyalo Technologies.
He previously served as Board Chairman for Otsuka Canada Pharmaceutical. Bob received a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University
and an M.B.A. degree in Marketing from the Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph's University, where he now sits on the Pharma
Joseph (Joe) Vazzano joined Abeona Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ABEO)
as Chief Financial Officer in March 2022. While at Abeona, Mr. Vazzano has secured multiple equity raises including private placements,
a registered direct offering, and at the market transactions. Before joining Abeona, Mr. Vazzano worked at Avenue Therapeutics,
Inc. (Nasdaq: ATXI) from August 2017 to January 2022, most recently serving as Avenue's Chief Financial Officer. During his tenure
at Avenue, Mr. Vazzano secured multiple equity financings and served in a leadership role for signing a complex, two-stage acquisition
of Avenue with future contingent value rights. Previously, Mr. Vazzano served as Assistant Corporate Controller at Intercept Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. (Nasdaq: ICPT) from October 2016 to July 2017, where he helped grow the finance and accounting department during the company's
transition from a development-stage company to a fully integrated commercial organization. Prior to Intercept, Mr. Vazzano has held various
finance and accounting roles at Pernix Therapeutics, Inc. and NPS Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Vazzano began his career at KPMG, LLP and
has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Lehigh University and is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of New Jersey.
About Allarity Therapeutics
Allarity Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALLR)
develops drugs for personalized treatment of cancer guided by its proprietary and highly validated companion diagnostic technology, the
DRP platform. The Company has a mature portfolio of three drug candidates: stenoparib, a PARP inhibitor in Phase
2 development for ovarian cancer, and in Phase 1 development for advanced solid tumors in a combination treatment with dovitinib, a pan-tyrosine
kinase inhibitor (pan-TKI) that has previously been developed through Phase 3 in renal cancer; and IXEMPRA (Ixabepilone),
a microtubule inhibitor approved in the U.S. and marketed by R-PHARM U.S. for the treatment of second-line metastatic breast cancer, currently
in Phase 2 development in Europe for the same indication. Additionally, the Company has rights in two secondary assets: 2X-111, a liposomal
formulation of doxorubicin for metastatic breast cancer and/or glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), which is the subject of discussions for
a restructured out-license to Smerud Medical Research International AS; and LiPlaCis , a liposomal formulation of cisplatin
and its accompanying DRP , being developed via a partnership with CHOSA Oncology AB for late-stage metastatic breast cancer.
The Company is headquartered in the United States and maintains an R&D facility in Hoersholm, Denmark. For more information, please
visit the Company's website at www.Allarity.com.
Therapeutics, Inc. I 24 School Street, 2nd Floor I Boston, MA I U.S.A.
I NASDAQ: ALLR I www.allarity.com
About the Drug Response Predictor - DRP Companion
Allarity uses its drug-specific DRP
to select those patients who, by the genetic signature of their cancer, are found to have a high likelihood of responding to the specific
drug. By screening patients before treatment, and only treating those patients with a sufficiently high DRP score,
the therapeutic response rate can be significantly increased. The DRP method builds on the comparison of sensitive
vs. resistant human cancer cell lines, including transcriptomic information from cell lines combined with clinical tumor biology filters
and prior clinical trial outcomes. DRP is based on messenger RNA from patient biopsies. The DRP
platform has proven its ability to provide a statistically significant prediction of the clinical outcome from drug treatment in cancer
patients in 37 out of 47 clinical studies that were examined (both retrospective and prospective), including ongoing, prospective Phase
2 trials of Stenoparib and IXEMPRA . The DRP platform, which can be used in all cancer types and
is patented for more than 70 anti-cancer drugs, has been extensively published in peer-reviewed literature.
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/allaritytx
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking
statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide Allarity's
current expectations or forecasts of future events. The words "anticipates," "believe," "continue,"
"could," "estimate," "expect," "intends," "may," "might," "plan,"
"possible," "potential," "predicts," "project," "should," "towards,"
"would" and similar expressions may identify forward-looking statements, but the absence of these words does not mean that
a statement is not forward-looking. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements related to the expected
availability of capital to fund its anticipated clinical trials, statements related to advancing dovitinib in combination with stenoparib
or another therapeutic candidate or other approved drug, any statements related to ongoing clinical trials for stenoparib as a monotherapy
or in combination with another therapeutic candidate for the treatment of advanced ovarian cancer, or ongoing clinical trials (in Europe)
for IXEMPRA for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer, statements relating to the effectiveness
of the Company's DRP companion diagnostics platform in predicting whether a particular patient
is likely to respond to a specific drug, and statements related to the Company's ability to maintain compliance with the Nasdaq
Listing Rule. Any forward-looking statements in this press release are based on management's current expectations of future events
and are subject to multiple risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set
forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the risk that the
Company is not able to raise sufficient capital to support its current and anticipated clinical trials, the risk that results of
a clinical study do not necessarily predict final results and that one or more of the clinical outcomes may materially change following
more comprehensive reviews of the data, and as more patient data become available, the risk that results of a clinical study are subject
to interpretation and additional analyses may be needed and/or may contradict such results, the receipt of regulatory approval for dovitinib