UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549
FORM
CURRENT REPORT
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Item 5.02. Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.
On December 9, 2022, the Board of Directors (the “Board”) of HOOKIPA Pharma Inc. (the Company”) appointed Malte Peters, M.D. as a director of the Board, effective January 1, 2023. Dr. Peters will serve as a Class II director, to serve until the Company’s annual meeting of stockholders in 2024.
Dr. Peters has served as Chief Research and Development Officer of MorphoSys AG, a biopharmaceutical company, since March 2020, a position he will retire from at the end of 2022. Prior to that Dr. Peters served as its Chief Development Officer and member of its management board since March 2017. Prior to his time at MorphoSys, Dr. Peters served as the Global Head of Clinical Development of the Biopharmaceuticals Business Unit at Sandoz International. From 2004 to 2015, he served as Clinical Head and Site Head for Basel and East Hanover in the Department of Oncology Translational Medicine at Novartis. Dr. Peters has also held teaching appointments in Internal Medicine and Biochemistry at the University of Mainz, Germany, served as Research Scientist at the Amgen Research Institute in Toronto, Canada, as Director of Cancer Research at Merck KGaA and as Medical Director at Micromet AG. Dr. Peters is a member of the Board of Directors of Tango Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: TNGX). Dr. Peters received his Doctor of Medicine from the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and was trained at the Universities of Padova, Italy, and Bochum and Berlin, Germany. After scientific work at different universities he habilitated in Internal Medicine at the University of Mainz, Germany. The Board believes Dr. Peters’ extensive knowledge of the biotechnology industry makes him qualified to serve on the Company’s Board.
Dr. Peters will be compensated for his service as a non-employee director pursuant to the Company’s Non-Employee Director Compensation Policy. As a non-employee director, Dr. Peters is entitled to an initial option to purchase 19,200 shares of the Company’s common stock and is also entitled to receive an annual cash retainer of $40,000 and additional annual stock option awards, subject to his continued service on the Board.
The Company also entered into an indemnification agreement with Dr. Peters in connection with his appointment to the Board, which is in substantially the same form as that entered into with the other directors of the Company. There are no other arrangements or understandings between Dr. Peters and any other persons pursuant to which he was selected as a director, and Dr. Peters has no direct or indirect material interest in any transaction required to be disclosed pursuant to Item 404(a) of Regulation S-K.
Item 7.01 Regulation FD Disclosure
On December 9, 2022, the Board appointed Katia Schlienger as Chief Medical Officer, effective January 1, 2023.
Dr. Schlienger has served as the Company’s Executive Vice President, Clinical Research and Development since July 2022. Prior to that, Dr. Schlienger served as Senior Vice President, Head of Immuno-Oncology Clinical Research and Development from January 2021 to June 2022. She previously worked at Merck & Co., for 14 years, serving in roles of increasing responsibility across early and late-stage clinical development in oncology and vaccines. She received an M.D. from the School of Medicine Lariboisiere Saint-Louis in Paris, France and a Ph.D. in Microbiology/Virology from Paris Diderot University.
On December 15, 2022, the Company issued a press release announcing the appointments of Dr. Peters to the Board and Dr. Schlienger as the Chief Medical Officer. A copy of this press release is furnished as Exhibit 99.1 to this report on Form 8-K.
The information in this Item 7.01 and Exhibit 99.1 attached hereto is intended to be furnished and shall not be deemed “filed” for purposes of Section 18 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”) or otherwise subject to the liabilities of that section, nor shall it be deemed incorporated by reference in any filing under the Securities Act of 1933 or the Exchange Act, except as expressly set forth by specific reference in such filing.
Item 9.01. Exhibits
| (d) Exhibits | ||
| 99.1 | Press Release issued by the Company on December 15, 2022, furnished herewith. | |
| 104 | Cover Page Interactive Data File (embedded within the Inline XBRL document). | |
SIGNATURE
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
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Date: December 15, 2022 |
HOOKIPA Pharma, Inc. | |
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By: | /s/ Joern Aldag |
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Joern Aldag | |
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Chief Executive Officer (Principal Executive Officer) | |
Exhibit 99.1
HOOKIPA Pharma Appoints Katia Schlienger, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Medical Officer and Malte Peters, M.D., to Board of Directors
December 15, 2022
NEW YORK and VIENNA, Austria, Dec. 15, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- HOOKIPA Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: HOOK, ‘HOOKIPA’), a company developing a new class of immunotherapeutics based on its proprietary arenavirus platform, announced today the promotion of Katia Schlienger, M.D., Ph.D., to Chief Medical Officer and the appointment of Malte Peters, M.D., to its Board of Directors, both effective January 1, 2023.
“Katia has had a major impact on HOOKIPA’s clinical development strategy and execution in immuno-oncology therapeutics and vaccines since she joined the Company in 2021. She will be leading the progression of our clinical programs to the next level, specifically our own programs in head and neck and prostate cancers and our partnered programs with Gilead and Roche,” said Joern Aldag, Chief Executive Officer at HOOKIPA. “We are also excited to welcome Malte to our Board. With a background in both oncology and infectious disease, Malte’s experience leading dozens of oncology therapies through the clinic to help patients will be invaluable to HOOKIPA as we advance our pipeline and initiate additional clinical studies.”
Dr. Schlienger has been promoted to Chief Medical Officer. She has served as the Company’s Executive Vice President, Clinical Research and Development since July 2022. Prior to that, Dr. Schlienger served as Senior Vice President, Head of Immuno-Oncology Clinical Research and Development from January 2021 to June 2022. She previously worked at Merck & Co., for 14 years, serving in roles of increasing responsibility across early and late-stage clinical development in oncology and vaccines. She received an M.D. from the School of Medicine Lariboisiere Saint-Louis in Paris, France and a Ph.D. in Microbiology/Virology from Paris Diderot University.
Dr. Peters serves as Chief Research and Development Officer at MorphoSys and will retire from the company at the end of 2022. He joined MorphoSys in 2017 as Chief Development Officer. In these roles, he oversaw the company’s research and development pipeline, including the design and execution of three pivotal studies. Prior to joining MorpoSys, Dr. Peters was Global Head of Clinical Development of the biopharmaceuticals business unit of Sandoz in Germany. Dr. Peters also spent 12 years in leadership positions at Novartis Oncology, including Vice President, Clinical Head and Site Head for Basel, East Hanover and Shanghai. He was responsible for multiple development programs and clinical trials at Novartis, contributing to the approval of several cancer therapies. Earlier in his career, he held positions at Micromet AG and Merck KgaA, and also served as a research scientist in infectious disease.
Dr. Peters is a Member of the Board of Directors at Tango Therapeutics (NASDAQ: TNGX). He is board certified in internal medicine and earned his medical degree from Freie Universität in Berlin, with a postdoctoral fellowship in Toronto.
“I am passionate about improving global health, and I have dedicated my career to making new therapies available to individuals with serious and life-threatening conditions,” said Dr. Peters. “I’m honored to join the HOOKIPA Board of Directors and look forward to contributing my expertise to help the company advance its pipeline of novel arenaviral therapeutic candidates so we may have more tools to improve the lives of people with cancer and chronic infectious disease.”
About HOOKIPA
HOOKIPA Pharma Inc. (NASDAQ: HOOK) is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing novel immunotherapies, based on its proprietary arenavirus platform, which are designed to mobilize and amplify targeted T cells and thereby fight or prevent serious disease. HOOKIPA’s replicating and non-replicating technologies are engineered to induce robust and durable antigen-specific CD8+ T cell responses and pathogen-neutralizing antibodies. HOOKIPA’s pipeline includes its wholly owned investigational arenaviral immunotherapies targeting Human Papillomavirus 16-positive cancers, prostate cancers, and other undisclosed programs. HOOKIPA is collaborating with Roche on an arenaviral immunotherapeutic for KRAS-mutated cancers. In addition, HOOKIPA aims to develop functional cures of HBV and HIV in collaboration with Gilead.
Find out more about HOOKIPA online at www.hookipapharma.com.
For further information, please contact:
| Media | Investors |
| Instinctif Partners | Matt Beck |
| hookipa@instinctif.com | Executive Director – Investor Relations |
| +44 (0)20 7457 2020 | matthew.beck@hookipapharma.com |
| +1-917-209-6886 |
Forward Looking Statements
Certain statements set forth in this press release constitute “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements can be identified by terms such as “believes,” “expects,” “plans,” “potential,” “would” or similar expressions and the negative of those terms. Such forward-looking statements involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause HOOKIPA’s research and clinical development programs, future results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the uncertainties inherent in the drug development process, including HOOKIPA’s programs’ early stage of development, the process of designing and conducting preclinical and clinical trials, the regulatory approval processes, the timing of regulatory filings, the challenges associated with manufacturing drug products, HOOKIPA’s ability to successfully establish, protect and defend its intellectual property, risks relating to business interruptions resulting from the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease outbreak or similar public health crises, the impact of COVID-19 on the enrollment of patients and timing of clinical results, and other matters that could affect the sufficiency of existing cash to fund operations. HOOKIPA undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to the business of the company in general, see HOOKIPA’s quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2022, which is available on the Security and Exchange Commission’s website at www.sec.gov and HOOKIPA’s website at www.hookipapharma.com.
Investors and others should note that we announce material financial information to our investors using our investor relations website (https://ir.hookipapharma.com/), SEC filings, press releases, public conference calls and webcasts. We use these channels, as well as social media, to communicate with our members and the public about our company, our services and other issues. It is possible that the information we post on social media could be deemed to be material information. Therefore, we encourage investors, the media, and others interested in our company to review the information we post on the U.S. social media channels listed on our investor relations website.