Casi Pharmaceuticals (CASI)

[Rocky I]

CASI Pharmaceuticals Announces The Appointment Of Wei-Wu He, Ph.D., Executive Chairman, To The Role Of Chief Executive Officer
ROCKVILLE, Md., April 2, 2019 - CASI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: CASI), a U.S. pharmaceutical company with a platform to develop and accelerate the launch of pharmaceutical products and innovative therapeutics in China, the U.S., and throughout the world, announced that Wei-Wu He, Ph.D., Executive Chairman of CASI, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer. Dr. He will continue to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Dr. He succeeds Ken K. Ren, Ph.D. who for personal reasons is stepping down from his role as Chief Executive Officer but will remain on the Company's Board of Directors.

Prior to joining CASI as CEO, Dr. He had a very successful career building companies from early to revenue and profit stages. Most recent from his track record was serving as CEO of OriGene Technologies, Inc., which he co-founded and built into a profitable life science company that later merged with a publicly traded Chinese company, VICANBIO Cell & Gene Engineering Corp., Ltd. (SHA: 600645). Dr. He will continue in his role as Chairman of the Board of OriGene, and is also the founder and general partner of Emerging Technology Partners, LLC, a life sciences focused venture fund, and has been involved in funding over 60 biotech companies. In the earlier part of his career, Dr. He was one of the first few scientists at Human Genome Sciences, and prior to that, was a research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital and Mayo Clinic. Dr. He is an author to 30 research publications and holder of over 32 issued patents.

"We are grateful for Ken's dedication to CASI during the Company's transition period and his role in the Company's growth in China, the advancement of our pipeline and our fundraising initiatives," said Dr. He.

Dr. He continued, "This is an exciting inflection point in CASI's history and I look forward to working with our management team to build a revenue-driven commercial company, with EVOMELA® as the first product in our pipeline to launch this year. I am particularly excited to pursue additional products to complement our pipeline and therapeutic areas, while we concurrently advance our existing products to the market and serve our patients."