miRagen Strengthens Leadership Team with Appointment of Lee Rauch as Chief Operating Officer
miRagen Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MGEN) has appointed Lee Rauch as Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately. Rauch, a seasoned executive with over 25 years of biotech experience, will oversee business development, investor relations, and corporate communications. Her track record includes leadership roles at Global Blood Therapeutics and other companies. The executive team believes her expertise will enhance miRagen's position in advancing RNA-targeted therapies, including candidates targeting various cancers and cardiac diseases, potentially increasing shareholder value.
- Appointment of Lee Rauch as COO could enhance business development and strategic partnerships.
- Rauch's extensive experience in biotech may drive growth and improve the pipeline's potential.
- Concerns about continuity as the company undergoes leadership changes.
- Rauch's success in rapidly advancing product candidates remains uncertain.
BOULDER, Colo., June 18, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- miRagen Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MGEN), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of RNA-targeted therapies, today announced the appointment of Lee Rauch as Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately. Ms. Rauch reports directly to President and Chief Executive Officer William S. Marshall, Ph.D., and is responsible for overseeing miRagen’s business development, licensing, partnerships, investor relations, corporate communications, intellectual property, and new product planning.
“We are excited to have Lee join the miRagen team and bring an extensive track record of experience across all aspects of business planning, licensing, and commercialization in the biotech industry. Adding Lee to the miRagen executive team puts us in a stronger position to realize the potential of our pipeline of proprietary RNA-targeted therapies in both near and long-term opportunities,” stated Dr. Marshall.
“I am pleased to be joining the miRagen team at this exciting time in the company’s history. I believe the current pipeline offers a number of clinical and preclinical stage programs ready for continued development, as well as for potential partnerships and licensing opportunities with the potential to drive long-term shareholder value,” stated Ms. Rauch.
Ms. Rauch has more than 25 years of experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, helping build successful companies from pre-clinical stage to advanced clinical development. During this time, she has held several executive positions with Global Blood Therapeutics (NASDAQ: GBT), Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Nuon Therapeutics, POINT Biomedical, COR Therapeutics, and Syntex Corporation (Roche Bioscience). She has also served as a consultant to the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining miRagen, she was the Executive in Residence at Columbia Technology Ventures. Until 2015, she held the role of Chief Business Officer at GBT, where she oversaw overall business functions. Prior to GBT, she was President and CEO of Nuon Therapeutics, an auto-immune and inflammatory disease company. Before Nuon, she was the Interim Chief Business Officer and V.P. of Corporate Development at Onyx. Earlier in her career she was a founding member of McKinsey & Co.’s Pharmaceutical Practice. Ms. Rauch received her M.B.A. in finance from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in Chemistry from Arizona State University.
Currently, she also serves as Executive Chairman to Springboard Enterprises Health Innovation Hub, an international organization for women-led life science and healthcare companies seeking growth funding, connections to experts, and strategic partners for product development and expansion.
About miRagen Therapeutics
miRagen Therapeutics, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company discovering and developing proprietary RNA-targeted therapies with a specific focus on microRNAs and their role in diseases where there is a high unmet medical need. miRagen has three clinical stage product candidates, cobomarsen, remlarsen, and MRG-110. miRagen’s clinical product candidate for the treatment of certain cancers, cobomarsen, is an inhibitor of miR-155, which is found at abnormally high levels in malignant cells of several blood cancers. miRagen’s clinical product candidate for the treatment of pathological fibrosis, remlarsen, is a replacement for miR-29, which is found at abnormally low levels in a number of pathological fibrotic conditions, including cutaneous, cardiac, renal, hepatic, pulmonary and ocular fibrosis, as well as in systemic sclerosis. MRG-110, an inhibitor of miR-92, is miRagen’s product candidate for the treatment of heart failure and other ischemic disease. In addition to these programs, miRagen is developing a pipeline of preclinical product candidates. The goal of miRagen’s translational medicine strategy is to progress rapidly to first-in-human studies once it has established the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamic, safety, and manufacturability of the product candidate in preclinical studies. For more information, please visit www.miragen.com. For information on clinical trials, please visit www.clinicaltrials.gov.
Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties for purposes of the safe harbor provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements contained in this press release other than statements of historical fact, including statements regarding miRagen’s strategy, anticipated clinical development milestones, future operations, future financial position, future revenue, projected expenses, prospects, plans and objectives of management or the expected features of or potential indications for miRagen’s product candidates are forward-looking statements. The words “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “plan,” “expect,” “predict,” “potential,” “opportunity,” “goals,” or “should,” and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements are based on management’s current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results and performance could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of many factors, including, without limitation: that miRagen has incurred losses since its inception, and anticipates that it will continue to incur significant losses for the foreseeable future; future financing activities may cause miRagen to restrict its operations or require it to relinquish rights; miRagen may fail to demonstrate safety and efficacy of its product candidates; miRagen’s product candidates are unproven and may never lead to marketable products; miRagen’s product candidates are based on a relatively novel technology, which makes it difficult to predict the time and cost of development and of subsequently obtaining regulatory approval, if at all; miRagen’s product candidates may cause undesirable side effects or have other properties that could delay or prevent the regulatory approval; and the results of miRagen’s clinical trials to date are not sufficient to show safety and efficacy of miRagen’s product candidates and may not be indicative of future clinical trial results.
miRagen has based these forward-looking statements largely on its current expectations and projections about future events and trends. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those described under the heading “Risk Factors” in miRagen’s Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent periodic and current reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Moreover, miRagen operates in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks emerge from time to time.
It is not possible for its management to predict all risks, nor can it assess the impact of all factors on its business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements it may make. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the future events and trends discussed in this press release may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated or implied in the forward-looking statements. miRagen undertakes no obligation to revise or publicly release the results of any revision to such forward-looking statements, except as required by law. Given these risks and uncertainties, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.
Investor Relations Contact: Dan Ferry LifeSci Advisors (617) 430-7576
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