Canakinumab

Mina Kim appointed Chief Executive Officer and to Board of Directors ACELYRIN Founder Shao-Lee Lin, M.D., Ph.D., steps down as Chief Executive Officer Shephard (Shep) Mpofu, M.D., MRCP, FRCP named Chief Medical Officer, Gil Labrucherie, the company’s Chief Financial Officer, additionally named Chief Business Officer, and Sanam Pangali named Chief Legal Officer and Head of People LOS ANGELES, May 09, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ACELYRIN, INC. (Nasdaq: SLRN), a late-stage clinical biopharma company focused on accelerating the development and delivery of transformative medicines in immunology, today announced that ACELYRIN’s founder Shao-Lee Lin, M.D., Ph.D. has stepped down as Chief Executive Officer and that Mina Kim, chief legal and administrative officer at ACELYRIN, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer and to the company’s Board of Directors (the “Board”). Ms. Kim brings more than 20 years of operational and leadership experience across a range of industries including synthetic biology, immunotherapy, renewable energy, and aviation. Ms. Kim played a pivotal role in ACELYRIN’s initial public offering and has served as ACELYRIN’s Chief Legal and Administrative Officer since November 2022. Prior to that, she served as Chief Legal Officer and Head of Corporate Development at Zymergen, Inc., where she led the company’s corporate strategy and business development teams and built its legal team. She also oversaw Zymergen’s 2021 IPO process and the company’s eventual sale to Ginkgo Bioworks. Bruce Cozadd, chair of the ACELYRIN Board of Directors, said, “ACELYRIN is at an inflection point having recently announced early but exciting data for lonigutamab in thyroid eye disease and a positive late-stage trial for izokibep in psoriatic arthritis. The Board and Shao-Lee believe now is the right time to make these changes as we focus on prioritizing our portfolio to enable future success. Mina’s significant experience overseeing corporate strategy and corporate development, coupled with her knowledge of ACELYRIN’s pipeline and operations, make her the right person to lead ACELYRIN into its next chapter. The Board is confident that under Mina’s leadership ACELYRIN will realize its potential, driving value for shareholders and transforming patients’ lives.” “I am honored to serve as the next Chief Executive Officer of ACELYRIN,” said Ms. Kim. “With encouraging data across our pipeline, we are continuing to advance our core mission of making a meaningful difference for patients. At the same time, we remain committed to reviewing our strategy, making disciplined decisions about portfolio prioritization and being responsible stewards of capital to best position our assets for successful development and potential commercialization in the future. I am excited to continue working with our employees and partners in this new capacity.” Cozadd continued, “On behalf of the Board, I would like to recognize Shao-Lee for her vision in leading ACELYRIN from inception through to becoming a well-capitalized public company. She has built a talented and accomplished team, and created a promising portfolio of clinical stage programs, each with the potential to fulfill ACELYRIN’s mission of delivering meaningful new medicines for patients. We wish her all the best in the future.” “Since the founding of ACELYRIN, we have been singularly focused on making a meaningful impact on patients’ lives by pursuing innovative approaches to speed the development of life-changing therapies,” said Dr. Lin. “Building and leading ACELYRIN to this moment in its history has been a tremendous honor and privilege. It is time for the next stage of evolution for the company. I wish the team every success in the continued pursuit of our mission to make meaningful new medicines for patients.” In addition to Ms. Kim’s appointment, Shephard (Shep) Mpofu, M.D., MRCP, FRCP, who most recently served as ACELYRIN’s Senior Vice President of Development, has been promoted to the role of Chief Medical Officer, Gil Labrucherie, who serves as ACELYRIN’s Chief Financial Officer, has been named Chief Business Officer in addition to Chief Financial Officer, and Sanam Pangali, who most recently served as ACELYRIN’s Senior Vice President, Corporate Legal, has been promoted to Chief Legal Officer and Head of People. Business Update and Key Upcoming Milestones In a separate press release ACELYRIN provided an update on various corporate milestones and announced that it will forego hosting the previously scheduled Q1 2024 earnings call. The company will file the related quarterly report on Form 10-Q no later than May 14, 2024. The press release can be found on the investor relations section of the company’s website. About Mina KimMina Kim has served as the Chief Legal and Administrative Officer of ACELYRIN, INC. since 2022. From 2020 to 2022, Ms. Kim was the Chief Legal Officer and Head of Corporate Development at Zymergen, Inc., where she oversaw corporate strategy, business development, corporate & SEC reporting, intellectual property, litigation and employment, compliance, regulatory, public policy, and sustainability. She led Zymergen’s 2021 IPO process and later sale to Ginkgo Bioworks. Prior to Zymergen, Ms. Kim served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and General Counsel at Atara Biotherapeutics. Before Atara, Ms. Kim was General Counsel at Sunrun where she led the 2015 IPO. Earlier in her career she was Vice President, Legal at BBAM, LLC, General Counsel of Fly Leasing, Assistant General Counsel at Williams-Sonoma, and an Associate at the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell. She holds a JD from Harvard Law School and a BA in History from Dartmouth College. About Shep MpofuShep Mpofu has served as Senior Vice President, Development and Translational Sciences of ACELYRIN, INC. since October 2023. Prior to ACELYRIN he spent nearly 20 years at Novartis AG, where he most recently served as Chief Medical Officer for its Gene Therapy Franchise. At Novartis he held positions of increasing responsibility in the immunology, rheumatology and dermatology franchises, which culminated with global leadership of clinical development for canakinumab and secukinumab. He is a UK General Medical Council Board-certified rheumatologist, who previously practiced at several institutions in the UK. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians UK, and he obtained his MB.Ch.B (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery degrees) from the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine at the University of Zimbabwe. About Gil LabrucherieGil has served as the Chief Financial Officer of ACELYRIN, INC. since 2022. He was previously Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Nektar Therapeutics where he led a team of more than 150 professionals in financial accounting and public reporting, business and strategic planning, corporate legal, intellectual property, government affairs, information technology and supply chain management. Prior to that he was the Senior Vice President and General Counsel at Nektar, Vice President of Corporate Development at E2open, Inc. and Senior Director of Corporate Development at AltaVista Company. He began his career as corporate counsel at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Gil holds a JD from the University of California Berkeley School of Law and a BA from the University of California Davis. He is also a CFA charterholder. About Sanam PangaliSanam Pangali has served as Senior Vice President, Corporate Legal of ACELYRIN, INC. since October 2023 and previously served as Vice President, Corporate Legal. Prior to joining ACELYRIN in 2022, she served as General Counsel, Vice President and Corporate Secretary at Snapdocs, Inc., a technology company in the mortgage lending space, from 2020 to 2021. Before that, she served as Senior Director & Associate General Counsel at Principia Biopharma Inc. through its September 2020 acquisition by Sanofi. Earlier in her career, she led the corporate and commercial contracting legal functions at Sunrun Inc., from 2016 to 2019 and prior to that was Director & Assistant General Counsel at affiliates TerraForm Power and SunEdison Inc. from 2013 to 2016, spanning mergers and acquisitions, project finance and development. Ms. Pangali began her legal career as a Senior Associate at Morrison & Foerster LLP for six years working in the firm’s Business and Finance practice groups, advising clients in capital markets, venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, project finance and corporate governance matters. She holds a JD from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and a BA in Political Science, with a Minor in Economics, from the University of California, San Diego. About ACELYRIN, INC.ACELYRIN, INC. (Nasdaq: SLRN) is a Los Angeles area-based late-stage clinical biopharma company – with additional operations in the San Francisco Bay area – focused on providing patients life-changing new treatment options by identifying, acquiring, and accelerating the development and commercialization of transformative medicines. ACELYRIN has two programs in late-stage clinical development. Lonigutamab is a subcutaneously delivered monoclonal antibody targeting IGF-1R advancing into Phase 2b/3 development for the treatment of thyroid eye disease. Izokibep is a next generation inhibitor of IL-17A in Phase 2b/3 development for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis, hidradenitis suppurativa and uveitis. For more information about ACELYRIN, visit us at www.acelyrin.com or follow us on LinkedIn and X. Forward Looking StatementsThis press release contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, statements related to ACELYRIN’s focus on prioritizing its portfolio to ensure future success, driving value for shareholders and transforming patients’ lives; the therapeutic potential of ACELYRIN’s product candidates; future development and commercialization of ACELYRIN’s assets; ACELYRIN working to advance the development of lonigutamab and izokibep; and other statements that are not historical fact. These forward-looking statements are based on ACELYRIN’s current plans, objectives and projections, and are inherently subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause ACELYRIN’s actual results to materially differ from those anticipated in such forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, those associated with the successful completion of development and regulatory activities with respect to ACELYRIN’s product candidates; the timing and results of ACELYRIN’s clinical trials, including the risk that future clinical trial results could differ materially and adversely from prior clinical trial results or data; maintaining and defending intellectual property protection; delays or failures to secure adequate supply of its product candidates; the sufficiency of ACELYRIN’s cash resources; legal proceedings; and other risks and uncertainties affecting ACELYRIN including those described from time to time under the caption “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in ACELYRIN’s current and future reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023. Forward-looking statements contained in this press release are made as of this date, and ACELYRIN undertakes no duty to update such information except as required under applicable law. ACELYRIN, INC. Contact:Tyler MarciniakVice President of Investor Relations, Communications and Advocacyinvestors@acelyrin.commedia@acelyrin.com

NEW YORK, March 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- A certain variant of a key anti-inflammatory gene protects men under age 75 from severe illness and death when hospitalized from Covid-19, a genetic analysis of their blood shows. According to the study authors, the protective gene in question, an interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL1RN) variant, appears to tamp down inflammation. Inflammation is the body's normal reaction to infection, but when unchecked, inflammation can go too far and damage tissues as part of many diseases, including in severe cases of infection with the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2. Published as a "major article" in The Journal of Infectious Diseases online March 13, the study showed that 124 men between the ages of 19 and 74 who possessed the IL1RN variant, called rs419598, were less likely to become severely ill after hospitalization for Covid-19, and 80% less likely to die from the disease. IL1RN is expressed naturally in the body. Different types of interleukin genes are known to dial inflammation up or down in the context of arthritis, and researchers say the results of the current study suggest that a similar dynamic influences the interleukin-1-related inflammation seen in Covid-19 patients. The findings, from researchers at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, stand out because historically more men than women are known to die from Covid-19, and the IL1RN rs419598 variant appears to selectively protect only men up to age 74, but not beyond that as age-related chronic illnesses unfold. The research team used sequencing technologies for the study to determine the presence of specific genes or variations in the letter code that makes up genes in blood samples from 2,589 men and women hospitalized for Covid-19 at NYU Langone's Tisch Hospital in Manhattan from March 2020 to March 2021. More than half of the men and women in the study were older than age 60 and obese, factors that are known to increase the risk of death from the viral infection. Overall, more men than women (240 men, at 60.5%; and 157 women, at 39.5%) died from their disease, with women 20% less likely to die than men. "Our study results show that among hospitalized patients, while women are still overall less likely than men to die from Covid-19, those men age 74 and younger who possess the IL1RN gene variant rs419598 are much less likely to suffer the severe inflammation tied to SARS-CoV-2 infection and less likely to die from the disease," said study colead investigator and molecular biologist Mukundan Attur, PhD. Attur is an associate professor in the Department of Medicine at NYU Langone Health. Among the study's other findings was that average blood levels of the anti-inflammatory protein IL-1Ra, coded by IL1RN, were 14 times higher in 181 hospitalized men than in healthy male study controls from the general population, and 10 times as high in 178 hospitalized women than in healthy females. However, researchers say the increased levels of IL-1Ra in women did not result in any statistically significant reductions in death. "Our analysis offers substantial evidence of the biological link between the severe inflammation seen in SARS-CoV-2 and that which occurs in rheumatoid arthritis," said study senior investigator Steven Abramson, MD, the Frederick H. King Professor of Internal Medicine at NYU Langone. Abramson, a rheumatologist who also serves as chair of the Department of Medicine and chief academic officer at NYU Langone, says previous research has shown that such rheumatoid inflammation is lower in people who possessed one of the three IL1RN variants analyzed in the study. More importantly, Abramson says, the new research suggests that restraining the interleukin-1 biological pathway, which is in part tamped down by the anti-inflammatory protein IL-1Ra, could help prevent the severe inflammation seen in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Further research, he says, is warranted into whether IL-1-inhibiting therapies, such as the IL1 receptor antagonists anakinra, canakinumab, and rilonacept, are effective against Covid infection. Abramson already has plans to investigate if the IL-1 pathway plays a role in long Covid, when people experience new or lingering symptoms, such as fatigue and "brain fog," months after recuperating from their initial infection. Abramson points out that the new study adds to the growing scientific evidence about the biological factors that contribute to gender differences seen in deaths from Covid-19, which are known to vary widely across the United States. Funding support for this study was provided by National Institutes of Health grants P30CA016087 and R21AR078466. Besides Abramson and Attur, other NYU Langone researchers involved in this study are co-lead investigators Christopher Petrilli, MD, and Samrachana Adhikari, PhD, and study co-investigators Eduardo Iturrate, MD; Xiyue Li, MS; Stephanie Tuminello, MPH; Nan Hu, MS; Aravinda Chakravarti, PhD; and David Beck, MD, PhD. STUDY LINK: Media Inquiries: David March 212-404-3528 [email protected] SOURCE NYU Langone Health System