Elios Therapeutics Announces Appointment of Phillip Johnson as Chief Financial Officer

AUSTIN, Texas, June 26, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Elios Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing innovative autologous, particle-delivered, dendritic cell cancer vaccines, today announced the appointment of Phillip Johnson as chief financial officer, effective immediately. Mr. Johnson brings more than 25 years of financial and operational leadership experience in both publicly traded and private companies.

"We are delighted to welcome Phil to Elios," said Buddy Long, chief executive officer of Elios Therapeutics. "Phil is a seasoned healthcare and financial executive with a distinguished track record of building commercial opportunities, raising capital and negotiating business development transactions. His range of industry expertise and leadership skills will serve us well as we advance our leading personalized therapeutic cancer vaccine, TLPLDC (tumor lysate, particle-loaded, dendritic cell vaccine), through clinical trials and into commercialization for the prevention of disease recurrence in patients with high-risk melanoma."

"I am thrilled to join Elios Therapeutics at this exciting time in the Company's growth and development," said Phillip Johnson. "Elios has a truly innovative immuno-oncology platform with potential applicability across a broad range of tumor types. I look forward to working with the management team to advance the program and further Elios' mission of developing next-generation immunotherapies that may make a meaningful difference in the lives of patients, caregivers and physicians."

Mr. Johnson joins Elios after having served as an executive and consultant for a number of publicly traded, privately held, private equity and pre-IPO companies, developing strategy and leading efforts to support fundraising, acquisitions, deal structures, growing finance functions, and improving working capital. Over the course of his career, Mr. Johnson has provided companies with more than $850M in debt and equity financing to provide sound financial footing and substantial growth ? including the development of corporate environments that have delivered shareholder returns ranging from 50 to 1,700 percent.

Prior to consulting, Mr. Johnson served as chief financial officer for Xeris Pharmaceuticals where he raised $65M in equity capital in Series B and C financings.  Prior to Xeris, Mr. Johnson was vice president and corporate controller at ArthroCare Corporation, a publicly traded private equity backed medical device company. During his tenure at ArthoCare, Mr. Johnson helped lead the financial reengineering activities that helped increase the Company's market capital from $100M to $1.7B before it was acquired in May 2014. Earlier in his career, he served in several key finance and leadership roles at Maverick Tube Corporation, SAVI, LLC and Primary Webworks and completed two commissions with Arthur Andersen and KPMG. Mr. Johnson is a certified public accountant and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting from Furman University.

About TLPLDC

The TLPLDC vaccine is unique, both in how it is made and how it is delivered. The vaccine is personalized, meaning it is made from a patient's tumor and blood. Every patient's tumor has a unique antigenic profile unlike any other, and dendritic cells found in the blood are the most potent antigen presenting cells in the body. Once TLPLDC is administered, it delivers the patient's complete repertoire of tumor antigens to the immune system, creating a dual innate and adaptive immune response, activating fighter T cells, and triggering the immune system to recognize, and seek out and destroy any cells containing the antigens and specific mutations from their tumor. 

Historically, autologous cancer vaccines have been rather onerous to develop, sometimes taking months between the tumor biopsy and administration. Elios has simplified the process so the time from resection to injection is approximately two weeks. This makes the vaccine highly feasible and easy for community and academic oncologists to adopt into their practices.

TLPLDC is currently being studied as a monotherapy and in combination with standard-of-care checkpoint inhibitor therapies in a Phase IIb clinical trial for the treatment of late-stage melanoma at leading academic cancer centers in the United States.

About Elios Therapeutics, LLC

Elios Therapeutics, LLC, is a biopharmaceutical company developing a portfolio of innovative personalized therapeutic cancer vaccines targeting unmet medical needs across a broad range of tumor types. Elios' lead therapeutic candidate is the TLPLDC (tumor lysate, particle-loaded, dendritic cell) vaccine, a personalized therapeutic cancer vaccine that uses a proprietary particle delivery system to stimulate the body's immune system to recognize cancer cells as foreign pathogens and fight a patient's specific cancer. For more information, please visit www.eliostherapeutics.com.

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Contacts:

Media Relations
Melyssa Weible
Elixir Health Public Relations
+1 (201) 723-5805
[email protected]

SOURCE Elios Therapeutics, LLC