Ziopharm Oncology Reports Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019 Emergence of TCR program, Controlled IL-12 data, strengthened team highlight 2019 Balance sheet strengthened; cash of approximately $177 m

Ziopharm Oncology Reports Financial Results for

Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2019

Emergence of TCR program, Controlled IL-12 data, strengthened team highlight 2019

Balance sheet strengthened; cash of approximately $177 million funds operations to

Clinical trial milestones and data readouts in 1H20

Company to host conference call and webcast today at 4:30 p.m. ET

Boston, March 2, 2020 Ziopharm Oncology, Inc. ( Ziopharm or the Company ) (Nasdaq: ZIOP), today

announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2019 and provided a corporate update.

since forging our corporate independence, we have advanced all our clinical programs, licensed critical intellectual property, recruited key personnel to the Company and Board, and fortified our financial position, said Laurence Cooper, M.D.,

Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer. In 2020, we will use this foundation to accelerate our commercial pathway, through enrollment at NCI to TCR-T trial, preparing

TCR-T trials with MD Anderson Cancer Center, data readouts on Controlled IL-12 in recurrent GBM and enrollment to trial of CAR-T

infused day after gene transfer.

Significant 2019 Achievements

Anticipated Milestones for the First Half of 2020

Fourth Quarter 2019 Financial Results

Full Year 2019 Financial Results

Conference Call and Webcast

Scheduled for today at 4:30 p.m. ET, the conference call can be accessed by dialing 1-844-309-0618 (U.S. and Canada) or 1-661-378-9465 (international). The passcode

for the conference call is 6773016. To access the live webcast or the subsequent archived recording, visit the Investors section of the Ziopharm website at

www.ziopharm.com. The webcast will be recorded and available for replay on the Company s website for two weeks.

About Ziopharm Oncology, Inc.

Ziopharm Oncology is an

immuno-oncology company focused on developing end-to-end cost-effective solutions using its non-viral Sleeping Beauty

platform for T-cell receptor (TCR) and chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies and immune-stimulating gene therapy with Controlled interleukin 12 (IL-12). The Sleeping Beauty platform genetically modifies T cells with DNA plasmids to express TCRs to target neoantigens inside and outside hotspots for solid tumors and CAR to target CD19 for blood cancers

using the Company s Rapid Personalized Manufacturing to produce and release CAR-T as soon as the day after gene transfer. The Sleeping Beauty platform is being advanced in collaboration

with the National Cancer Institute, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Eden BioCell. The Company is also developing its Controlled IL-12 platform, or Ad-RTS-hIL-12 plus veledimex, as monotherapy and in combination with immune checkpoint inhibitors to treat brain cancer, including in collaboration with Regeneron

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer

This press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking

statements are statements that are not historical facts, and in some cases can be identified by terms such as may, will, could, expects, plans, anticipates, and

believes. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the Company s business and strategic plans, the availability of cash resources, the progress and timing of the Company s research and development

programs, including the anticipated dates for the initiation, completion and readouts of its clinical trials and the Company s expectations regarding the number of patients in its clinical trials. Although Ziopharm s management team

believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to

predict and generally beyond the control of Ziopharm, that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and

uncertainties include among other things, changes in our operating plans that may impact our cash expenditures, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, future clinical data and analysis, including whether any of Ziopharm s

product candidates will advance further in the preclinical research or clinical trial process, including receiving clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or equivalent foreign regulatory agencies to conduct clinical trials and whether

and when, if at all, they will receive final approval from the U.S. FDA or equivalent foreign regulatory agencies and for which indication; the strength and enforceability of Ziopharm s intellectual property rights; competition from other

pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as risk factors discussed or identified in the public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission made by Ziopharm, including those risks and uncertainties listed in Ziopharm s Annual

Report on Form 10-K filed by Ziopharm with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We are providing this information as of the date of this press release, and Ziopharm does not undertake any obligation to

update or revise the information contained in this press release whether as a result of new information, future events or any other reason.

VP, Investor Relations and Corporate

E: ctaylor@ziopharm.com

Financial Tables Follow

ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc.

Statements of Operations

(in thousands except share and per share data)

ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc.