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Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Announces Appointment of Roger J. Lias, Ph.D., as President and Chief Executive Officer
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Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc. (MM) (NASDAQ:PPHM)
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Today : Tuesday 26 December 2017

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Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:PPHM) (NASDAQ:PPHMP), a company committed to improving patient lives by manufacturing and delivering high quality biologics, today announced the appointment of Roger J. Lias, Ph.D., as the company’s new president and chief executive officer. Dr. Lias, who has more than 20 years of contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) management experience, currently sits on the Peregrine board of directors and serves as president of Avid Bioservices, Peregrine’s wholly-owned CDMO subsidiary. Dr. Lias succeeds Steven W. King, who resigned as president and chief executive officer of Peregrine to pursue other professional interests.
Dr. Lias’ appointment is an important step in Peregrine’s ongoing transition to a dedicated CDMO and builds upon the company’s recent appointment of several proven CDMO industry veterans to the company’s board and management team. As part of this transformation, Peregrine is actively implementing a multi-pronged strategic plan designed to diversify and broaden its customer base and project mix, expand and strengthen its CDMO service offerings, and drive increased growth and profitability. Additionally, Peregrine is in the process of officially changing the company’s name to Avid Bioservices and adopting a new NASDAQ ticker symbol. The company expects this process to be completed in early 2018.

“We believe that Roger is best equipped to lead Peregrine, including the completion of the company’s transition to a pure play CDMO operating under the Avid Bioservices name. With the demand for biologics manufacturing exceeding the industry’s current capacity and expected to continue to grow in coming years, Roger and his team have worked aggressively to establish a strategic plan that we anticipate will allow the company to take advantage of this significant market opportunity. The team has already made important progress implementing this plan and we look forward to their continued execution of the strategy to best position our CDMO business for success,” said Joseph Carleone, Ph.D., chairman of Peregrine. “We would like to thank Steve King for the important contributions that he has made to both the Peregrine and Avid businesses and wish him luck with his future endeavors.”

Dr. Lias has previously held senior management positions at several leading CDMOs including Cytovance Biologics, KBI BioPharma, Diosynth RTP (formerly Covance Biotechnology Services) and Lonza Biologics. At each of these companies, he was primarily charged with overseeing commercial operations, including growing and diversifying their respective client bases. During this time, Dr. Lias’ achievements ranged from building start-up Cytovance’s contract process development and biopharmaceutical cGMP production business, to increasing revenues at Diosynth from $16 million to $120 million over a four-year period.

About Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a company transitioning from an R&D focused business to a pure play contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO). Peregrine's in-house CDMO services, including cGMP manufacturing and development capabilities, are provided through its wholly-owned subsidiary Avid Bioservices, Inc. (www.avidbio.com).

Peregrine is pursuing the licensing or sale of its proprietary R&D assets, including its lead immunotherapy candidate, bavituximab, which is currently being evaluated in clinical trials in combination with immune stimulating therapies for the treatment of various cancers. For more information, please visit www.peregrineinc.com .

About Avid Bioservices, Inc.
Avid Bioservices, a wholly owned subsidiary of Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, provides a comprehensive range of process development, high quality cGMP clinical and commercial manufacturing services for the biotechnology and biopharmaceutical industries. With nearly 25 years of experience producing monoclonal antibodies and recombinant proteins in batch, fed-batch and perfusion modes, Avid's services include cGMP clinical and commercial product manufacturing, purification, bulk packaging, stability testing and regulatory strategy, submission and support. The company also provides a variety of process development activities, including cell line development and optimization, cell culture and feed optimization, analytical methods development and product characterization. For more information about Avid, please visit www.avidbio.com.