Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. announced the appointment of Michael Weiser, M.D., Ph.D., to the company’s Board of Directors, effective March 15, 2018. Dr. Weiser will serve as the chair of the company’s Compensation Committee and will serve on the company’s Nominating & Governance and Audit Committees. Dr. Weiser is the founder and currently the co-CEO of Actin Biomed LLC. Dr. Weiser currently serves on the board of directors of Ziopharm Oncology, Inc. and on the board of directors of Emisphere Technologies, Inc. Separately, the company also announced that Jay Venkatesan, M.D., who has served as a member of the company’s Board of Directors since September 3, 2013, has stepped down from his role as a director of the company, effective March 1, 2018, in order to devote his full time and efforts to his other commitments.
Iovance Biotherapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The Company develops and delivers tumor infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL), therapies for patients with solid tumor cancers. Its lead product candidate, Amtagvi (lifileucel), is a tumor-derived autologous T cell immunotherapy indicated for the treatment of adult patients with unresectable or metastatic melanoma previously treated with a PD-1 blocking antibody, and if BRAF V600 mutation positive, a BRAF inhibitor with or without a MEK inhibitor. The Company also marketing Proleukin (aldesleukin), aninterleukin-2, or IL-2, product used in the Amtagvi treatment regimen. Its development pipeline includes multicenter trials of TIL cell therapies in additional treatment settings for solid tumor cancers. Amtagvi and Proleukin are part of a treatment regimen that also includes lymphodepletion. The Company is also developing next generation therapies using TIL, such as genetically modified TIL cell therapy.