Alpine Immune Sciences Announces Appointment of M. Christina Yi as Chief Technology Officer and Grant under Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)

Rhea-AI Summary

Alpine Immune Sciences appoints M. Christina Yi as Chief Technology Officer, with her expertise and leadership expected to be important for the company's pipeline development. Wayne Gombotz will retire in August. Ms. Yi has been granted an option to purchase 185,000 shares of common stock.

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Alpine Immune Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: ALPN), a leading clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on developing innovative treatments for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, today announced the appointment of M. Christina Yi to Chief Technology Officer effective August 21, 2023. Ms. Yi has more than 25 years of biopharmaceuticals leadership experience, including manufacturing, quality, and supply chain. She succeeds Wayne Gombotz, Ph.D., who will retire in August.

“Christina is an accomplished industry leader and will be a key addition to our executive team as we prepare for a broad development plan for povetacicept. Her expertise and leadership will be important to Alpine as we continue to advance our pipeline to provide meaningful new therapeutic options for patients living with autoimmune and inflammatory diseases,” said Mitchell Gold, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “We thank Wayne for his significant contributions and leadership during his tenure at Alpine. He has been a great member of the Alpine executive team as we moved several of our platform programs into the clinic under his leadership. We appreciate his dedication to Alpine over the last five years and wish him well during his retirement.”

Ms. Yi joins Alpine from Provention Bio, Inc., a Sanofi company, where she served as Chief Operations Officer and played a critical role in the achievement of U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval and subsequent commercial launch of Tzield™ (teplizumab-mzwv), a first-in-class therapy for type 1 diabetes. Prior to that, she served as Chief Operating Officer at Vaxxinity and Chief Operations Officer at Dendreon Pharmaceuticals LLC. Earlier in her career, she held roles of increasing responsibility at Amgen in Quality for three commercially successful products. She received a B.S. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Washington, Seattle.

“I have been closely following the Alpine story and I am excited to be part of the company as they prepare to pursue a broad development plan for povetacicept across a number of auto-antibody mediated inflammatory diseases,” said Christina Yi.

In conjunction with her employment, effective August 21, 2023, Ms. Yi has been granted an option to purchase 185,000 shares of common stock. The option will vest with respect to 25% of the shares underlying the option on the one-year anniversary of her employment start date with the Company; the remaining 75% of the shares underlying the option will vest in equal monthly installments over the 36-month period following the one-year anniversary of Ms. Yi's employment start date, subject to her continued service to Alpine through each relevant vesting date.

In addition, pursuant to the terms of Alpine’s change of control and severance policy, if there is a change of control and, upon or during the 12 months after the change of control, Ms. Yi's employment is terminated either (i) by Alpine without cause or (ii) by Ms. Yi for good reason, the option will become fully vested and exercisable. The option has a ten-year term and an exercise price of $13.44, equal to the per share closing price of Alpine’s common stock as reported by Nasdaq on August 21, 2023. The stock options were granted outside Alpine’s 2018 Equity Incentive Plan as an inducement material to Ms. Yi entering into employment with Alpine in accordance with Nasdaq Listing Rule 5635(c)(4). The terms and conditions of the option are generally consistent with those in Alpine’s 2018 Equity Incentive Plan.

About Alpine Immune Sciences

Alpine Immune Sciences is committed to leading a new wave of immune therapeutics. With world-class research and development capabilities, a highly productive scientific platform, and a proven management team, Alpine is seeking to create first- or best-in-class multifunctional immunotherapies via unique protein engineering technologies to improve patients’ lives. Alpine has entered into strategic collaborations with leading global biopharmaceutical companies and has a diverse pipeline of clinical and preclinical candidates in development. For more information, visit www.alpineimmunesciences.com. Follow @AlpineImmuneSci on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not based on historical fact and include statements regarding our platform technology, potential therapies and product candidates, including those regarding our future development plans. Forward-looking statements generally include statements that are predictive in nature and depend upon or refer to future events or conditions and include words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “would,” “expect,” “plan,” “intend,” and other similar expressions, among others. These forward-looking statements are based on current assumptions that involve risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results, events, or developments to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control, include, but are not limited to: clinical trials may not demonstrate safety and efficacy of any of our product candidates; our ongoing discovery and preclinical efforts may not yield additional product candidates; our discovery-stage and preclinical programs may not advance into the clinic or result in approved products; any of our product candidates may fail in development, may not receive required regulatory approvals, or may be delayed to a point where they are not commercially viable; we may not achieve additional milestones in our proprietary or partnered programs; the impact of competition; adverse conditions in the general domestic and global economic markets; the impact of pandemics, or other related health crises on our business, research and clinical development plans and timelines and results of operations, including the impact on our clinical trial sites, collaborators, and contractors who act for or on our behalf, may be more severe and prolonged than currently anticipated; as well as the other risks identified in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date hereof and we undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements, and readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements.

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Media and Investor Relations Contact:

Temre Johnson

Alpine Immune Sciences, Inc.

ir@alpineimmunesciences.com

media@alpineimmunesciences.com

Source: Alpine Immune Sciences, Inc.