No hurry on RS if any?
Dr. Jeff Hutchins Appointed Chief Operating Officer for Heat Biologics
By AccessWire, July 03, 2017, 07:05:00 AM EDT
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DURHAM, NC / ACCESSWIRE / July 3, 2017 / Heat Biologics, Inc. ("Heat") (Nasdaq:HTBX), a leader in the development of novel therapies designed to activate a patient's immune system against cancer, has named Dr. Jeff Hutchins as its Chief Scientific and Operating Officer. Dr. Hutchins was formerly Heat's Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President, Pre-clinical Development. In his new role, Dr. Hutchins will lead all product development efforts for Heat and its Pelican Therapeutics subsidiary.
"Dr. Hutchins has played a critical role in Heat's evolution and has been a vital member of our executive team," said CEO, Jeff Wolf. "He is a talented scientist and accomplished biotech executive, and his vision and expertise should help us accelerate our clinical activities on the heels of the most recent encouraging clinical results in our ongoing Phase 2 clinical trial of HS-110 in combination with Bristol-Myers Squibb's anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor, nivolumab (Opdivo®), for the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC)."
"This is an exciting time to be at Heat Biologics and I am honored to assume the responsibility of overseeing its product development efforts," said Hutchins. "My goal in this new role is to progress our innovative product pipeline to the marketplace as rapidly and efficiently as possible. I look forward to continuing to work with a very talented team to advance our exciting Phase 2 lung cancer clinical trial in combination with nivolumab. We are encouraged by the industry response following the positive interim data we reported earlier this year, and look forward to reporting additional data later this year."
Dr. Hutchins brings more than 24 years of research and clinical development experience from both pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Dr. Hutchins earned his PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of Texas, Health Science Center at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Prior to joining Heat, he served as Vice President of Pre-clinical Research for Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and as Vice President of Pre-clinical Development at Inhibitex Inc., which was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb.
The Company also provided an update following the Annual Meeting of Shareholders, in which it reiterated that it has no immediate plans to conduct a reverse split. The proposal, as adopted in prior years, was a precautionary measure for corporate governance purposes and to provide the board with maximum flexibility.
"The resolutions approved provide the board with the flexibility it needs for good corporate governance," added Wolf. "Although the shareholders empowered the board to effect a reverse stock split in its discretion, we do not intend to proceed with such a split at this time, and consider this to be just one of many options available to us in the future to maintain shareholder value," added Wolf.
