Sigilon Therapeutics Appoints Ajay Rai, M.B.A., as Senior Vice President, Head of Business Development

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sigilon Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:SGTX), a biotechnology company that seeks to develop functional cures for chronic diseases through its Shielded Living Therapeutics™ platform, today announced the appointment of Ajay Rai, M.B.A., as Senior Vice President, Head of Business Development. Most recently, Mr. Rai served as Vice President, Corporate Development, Strategy & Alliance Management at Frequency Therapeutics where he was responsible for evolving the company’s overall business and corporate strategy and played an integral role in executing several financing rounds, including an Initial Public Offering.

“We are pleased to welcome Ajay to our team, as he brings over two decades of business development, finance and partnering experience in the life sciences,” said Rogerio Vivaldi, M.D., President and CEO of Sigilon. “At Sigilon, we are committed to discovering the full potential of our modular platform technology in hopes of reaching broader patient populations worldwide. Ajay has a strong track record of successfully expanding and accelerating access to novel therapeutics through targeted collaborations and strategic partnerships. We believe Ajay will play an important role in identifying and evaluating opportunities where Sigilon’s technology and growing pipeline could potentially disrupt existing treatment paradigms for patients with chronic disease.”

Prior to Frequency Therapeutics, Mr. Rai was Senior Director of Corporate Development for Takeda, where he was responsible for evaluating and leading mergers and acquisitions (M&A), divestments, joint ventures and new company formation. Previously, he spent more than a decade at Biogen, holding various roles of increasing responsibility including business planning, investor relations, corporate strategy, venture investment and business development/M&A. While there, he was responsible for leading business development activities for several therapeutic areas including immunology, pain and tissue injury, and fibrosis. Mr. Rai completed more than 15 transactions ranging from acquisitions to early-stage research partnerships and was instrumental in leading new and follow-on investments in multiple early-stage companies for Biogen’s Venture Portfolio. Earlier in his career, he was an M&A advisor for Ernst & Young’s M&A advisory practice, as well as was part of the Finance and Strategy Group of Roche Molecular Systems. Mr. Rai has been an advisor to multiple start-up life sciences companies, including Innovate Biopharma, Immunomic Therapeutics and Cayuga Therapeutics. He earned a B.S. in Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business and a M.B.A. from Case Western University.

Added Mr. Rai: “I am excited to be joining Sigilon, as I truly believe its platform technology has the ability to revolutionize the way patients living with chronic diseases are treated. I look forward to working with the talented Sigilon team in forging strategic partnerships with the goal of advancing the Company’s pipeline and expanding access to its platform technology.”

About Sigilon Therapeutics
Sigilon Therapeutics seeks to develop functional cures for chronic diseases through its Shielded Living Therapeutics™ platform. Sigilon’s product candidates are non-viral engineered cell-based therapies designed to produce the crucial proteins, enzymes or factors needed by patients living with chronic diseases such as hemophilia, lysosomal diseases and diabetes. The engineered cells are protected by Sigilon’s Afibromer™ biomaterials matrix, which shields them from immune rejection and fibrosis. Sigilon was founded by Flagship Pioneering in conjunction with Daniel Anderson, Ph.D., and Robert Langer, Sc.D., of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release includes forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of words such as “anticipate,” “expect,” “plan,” “could,” “may,” “will,” “believe,” “estimate,” “forecast,” “goal,” “project,” and other words of similar meaning. These forward-looking statements address various matters, including the modularity of our platform technology, the potential benefits of our pipeline and product candidates and our ability to expand or accelerate access through collaborations and partnerships. Each forward-looking statement contained in this press release is subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statement. Applicable risks and uncertainties include, among others, that we have incurred significant losses since inception and our need for additional funding; the SLTx platform consists of novel technologies that are not yet clinically validated for human therapeutic use; that we have only any results from the testing of any of our product candidates in clinical trials and any favorable preclinical results are not predictive of results that may be observed in clinical trials; we may be unable to obtain and maintain patent protection and other intellectual property rights for SIG-001 or any other product candidates and for our SLTx platform, or the scope of the patent and other intellectual property protection obtained may not be sufficiently broad; and the risks identified under the heading “Risk Factors” in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended March 31, 2021 and in any subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. We caution investors not to place considerable reliance on the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. You are encouraged to read our filings with the SEC, available at www.sec.gov, for a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties. The forward-looking statements in this press release speak only as of the date of this document, and we undertake no obligation to update or revise any of these statements.  Our business is subject to substantial risks and uncertainties, including those referenced above. Investors, potential investors, and others should give careful consideration to these risks and uncertainties.

Investor Contacts
Rob Windsor
Sigilon Therapeutics, Head of Investor Relations
robert.windsor@sigilon.com 
617-586-3837

Media Contact
Amy Bonanno
Solebury Trout
abonanno@soleburytrout.com 
914-450-0349