Kadmon Announces Appointment of Dr. Simon Cooper as Chief Medical Officer

NEW YORK, NY / ACCESSWIRE / March 1, 2021 / Kadmon Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:KDMN) today announced the appointment of Simon Cooper, MBBS, as Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer, effective March 1, 2021. In this role, Dr. Cooper will oversee the Company’s medical and clinical activities relating to the potential regulatory approval of belumosudil for chronic graft-versus-host disease and lead the Company’s clinical team to advance the development of additional product candidates.

Dr. Cooper succeeds John Ryan, M.D., Ph.D., who will remain with the Company and transition to the role of Executive Medical Director, Clinical and Regulatory Development, where he will continue to advise on clinical, regulatory and medical affairs.

“Dr. Cooper brings more than 23 years of successful clinical expertise to Kadmon, having served in leadership roles in the development and approval of several immunologic therapies,” said Harlan W. Waksal, M.D., President and CEO of Kadmon. “Dr. Cooper is a leader with a proven track record of managing high-performing, cross-functional teams. We believe that his involvement in multiple pharmaceutical product approvals and subsequent commercial launches will be invaluable to Kadmon as we prepare for our potential launch of belumosudil, if approved, and continue to ramp up additional pipeline progress.”

Dr. Cooper’s background in immunology-focused biological drug development is marked by several key leadership roles spanning the ranks of major pharmaceutical corporations, capped off with his most recent role as Chief Medical Officer of Anokion, a private biopharmaceutical company developing therapies for autoimmune diseases. Dr. Cooper joined Anokion in January 2019 from AbbVie, where he most recently served as Asset Strategy Leader with responsibility for the development of SKYRIZI^® (risankizumab), an anti-IL-23 antibody, across multiple indications. Prior to joining AbbVie, Dr. Cooper was Vice President, Global Project Head, Immunology and Inflammation at Sanofi, where he was involved in the development of KEVZARA^® (sarilumab), an IL-6R antibody approved to treat rheumatoid arthritis (RA). He played a key role in its worldwide submission in RA and was a lead contributor in the product’s global launch. Earlier in his career, Dr. Cooper was Global Program Medical Director at Novartis, Executive Director, Clinical Research for Human Genome Sciences (now part of GlaxoSmithKline), and Clinical Science Leader at Roche. In these roles, he was instrumental in the development and approvals for BENLYSTA^® (belimumab), COSENTYX^® (secukinumab) and RITUXAN^® (rituximab). He earned his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Medical School, United Kingdom (UK) before completing his higher medical training at Oxford University (UK).

About Kadmon

Kadmon is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops and delivers transformative therapies for unmet medical needs. Kadmon’s clinical pipeline includes treatments for immune and fibrotic diseases as well as immuno-oncology therapies.

Forward Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Such statements may be preceded by the words “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “could,” “intends,” “targets,” “projects,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Among those risks and uncertainties are risks related to market conditions, including market interest rates, and the trading price and volatility of Kadmon‘s common stock. We believe that these factors also include, but are not limited to, (i) the initiation, timing, progress and results of our preclinical studies and clinical trials, and our research and development programs; (ii) our ability to advance product candidates into, and successfully complete, clinical trials; (iii) the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our business, workforce, patients, collaborators and suppliers, including delays in anticipated timelines and milestones of our clinical trials and on various government agencies who we interact with and/or are governed by; (iv) our reliance on the success of our product candidates; (v) the timing or likelihood of regulatory filings and approvals, including the acceptance of our NDA for belumosudil, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic; (vi) our ability to expand our sales and marketing capabilities; (vii) our ability to expand our sales and marketing capabilities; (viii) the commercialization, pricing and reimbursement of our product candidates, if approved; (ix) the implementation of our business model, strategic plans for our business, product candidates and technology; (x) the scope of protection we are able to establish and maintain for intellectual property rights covering our product candidates and technology; (xi) our ability to operate our business without infringing the intellectual property rights and proprietary technology of third parties; (xii) costs associated with defending intellectual property infringement, product liability and other claims; (xiii) regulatory developments in the United States, Europe, and other jurisdictions; (xiv) estimates of our expenses, future revenues, capital requirements and our needs for additional financing; (xv) the potential benefits of strategic collaboration agreements and our ability to enter into strategic arrangements; (xvi) our ability to maintain and establish collaborations; (xvii) the rate and degree of market acceptance of our product candidates, if approved; (xviii) developments relating to our competitors and our industry, including competing therapies; (xix) our ability to effectively manage our anticipated growth; (xx) our ability to attract and retain qualified employees and key personnel; (xxi) our expected use of cash and cash equivalents and other sources of liquidity; (xxii) the potential benefits of any of our product candidates being granted orphan drug designation; (xxiii) the future trading price of the shares of our common stock and impact of securities analysts‘ reports on these prices; (xxiv) our ability to apply unused federal and state net operating loss carryforwards against future taxable income and/or (xv) other risks and uncertainties. More detailed information about the Company and the risk factors that may affect the realization of forward-looking statements is set forth in the Company‘s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including Kadmon‘s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019. Investors and security holders are urged to read these documents free of charge on the SEC‘s website at www.sec.gov. The Company assumes no obligation to publicly update or revise its forward-looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Contact Information

Ellen Cavaleri, Investor Relations
646.490.2989
ellen.cavaleri@kadmon.com

SOURCE: Kadmon Holdings, Inc.

View source version on accesswire.com:
https://www.accesswire.com/631515/Kadmon-Announces-Appointment-of-Dr-Simon-Cooper-as-Chief-Medical-Officer