University of California, Berkeley

Ms. Ginsberg's demonstrated leadership and extensive experience in consumer technology will support Flo's strategic growth LONDON, Jan. 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Flo Health ("Flo"), the #1 women's health app worldwide1 with 73 million monthly active users2 and the first European femtech to be valued at over one billion USD3, today announced the appointment of former Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg to its Board of Directors, effective immediately. Ms. Ginsberg's extensive experience in consumer technology and her demonstrated leadership in scaling successful brands make her a valuable addition to Flo's Board of Directors as the company focuses on continued strategic expansion globally. Ms. Ginsberg brings over 20 years of experience building category-defining consumer brands in the technology sector to the Flo Board. Throughout her 14-year career at Match Group, she held several executive positions at the company in North America, ultimately serving as CEO from 2017 to 2020. During Ms. Ginsberg's tenure, Match Group expanded its portfolio from a single brand – Match.com – operating in North America, to more than 12 brands with users across every country in the world. As CEO, she managed renowned brands such as Hinge, Tinder, OkCupid and international brands including Meetic in Europe and Pairs in Japan. During her tenure as CEO, she drove subscriber and revenue growth and quadrupled Match Group's stock price. In her role on Flo's Board, Ms. Ginsberg will utilize her experience supporting technology companies through periods of expansion to prepare Flo for its next stage of business growth, with a focus on sustainable momentum, effective governance, and enhanced market visibility. Dmitry Gurski, CEO of Flo, expressed his enthusiasm for Ms. Ginsberg's appointment. "We couldn't be more excited to welcome Mandy to our Board. Her extensive experience in consumer technology and her demonstrated ability to scale businesses will be vital as we embark on our next phase of growth. We look forward to leveraging her expertise to help us further our mission of creating a better future for female health." "I am thrilled to join Flo Health's Board of Directors," said Ms. Ginsberg. "Flo's commitment to empowering women through health and wellness resonates deeply with me, especially as a mom of two daughters. The team at Flo has created an incredible product built on technology acumen, a growth mentality, and an expert medical team supporting a robust portfolio of interactive reproductive health content. I am thrilled to collaborate with Dmitry and the executive team at Flo to drive meaningful change in women's health." Jessie Cai, Principal at General Atlantic and member of Flo's Board, commented, "We are excited to welcome Mandy to the Flo Board of Directors. Mandy's personal passion for empowering women through health and wellness, combined with her track record in building and advising global consumer internet and subscription businesses, will support Flo in tackling the big opportunities ahead." Ms. Ginsberg is currently an operating partner at Advent International, a global private equity investment firm. She currently serves on the Boards of Directors at Uber Technologies, ThredUp, and Universal Music Group, and previously served as a director at Match Group, J.C. Penney Company, Care.com, and Noom. Ms. Ginsberg holds a BA from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. She lives in Dallas, TX with her family including two daughters – a high school student and a medical student at The University of Texas. Flo Health Flo Health is the leading app in the Health & Fitness category4; it is the #1 OB-GYN-recommended app5 for period and cycle tracking and is the first European femtech unicorn following a 230M investment from General Atlantic in July 2024. The company supports 73 million monthly active users (MAUs) and 6 million paid subscribers.6 With over 120 medical experts7, Flo is committed to supporting women at every stage of their health journey, from menstruation to conception, pregnancy, and menopause. It provides curated cycle and ovulation tracking, tailored health insights, daily bite-sized visual content, and a private community for users to share their questions and concerns. As part of its mission to build a better future for female health, Flo's Pass it on Project aims to improve health literacy by providing up to 1 billion women in need with free access to Flo Premium and has donated 20M subscriptions to date. Flo prioritizes safety and focuses on being the most trusted digital source for women's health information. Flo Health's Anonymous Mode feature was recognized as one of TIME's Best Inventions 2023 and also named a finalist for Fast Company's 2023 World Changing Ideas Awards in the Rapid Response category as part of the company's commitment to privacy. For more information, please visit . Media Contact: Flo Health Denae Thibault [email protected] Logo - WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED

HUNTSVILLE, AL, Jan. 14, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Serina Therapeutics, Inc. (“Serina”) (NYSE American: SER), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing its proprietary POZ Platform™ drug delivery technology, today announced the appointment of Karen J. Wilson to the Board of Directors. "We are excited to welcome Karen to the Board of Directors. Karen’s financial expertise and deep understanding of the biotech landscape will play a crucial role in guiding our strategic initiatives and delivering transformative therapies to patients,” said Steve Ledger, Serina’s Chief Executive Officer. Ms. Wilson brings over three decades of leadership experiences in the life sciences sector. She currently serves as a board director for Connect Biopharma Holdings Limited, Elicio Therapeutics, Inc. and LAVA Therapeutics N.V. Previously, she held the position of Senior Vice President of Finance at Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc, where she also served as Principal Accounting Officer and Vice President of Finance. Prior to joining the Jazz Pharmaceuticals organization in February 2011, she held senior finance roles at PDL BioPharma, ViroLogic, and Novare Surgical Systems and was a consultant and auditor for Deloitte & Touche LLP. Ms. Wilson is a Certified Public Accountant and received a B.S. in Business from the University of California, Berkeley. Ms. Wilson stated, "I am excited to join Serina at such a pivotal time in its growth. I look forward to working with the talented executive team and fellow board members to help drive the company's vision forward and make a meaningful impact in the lives of patients." Serina also announced the departure of Steven Mintz from its Board of Directors. Mr. Ledger stated, “We thank Steven for his contributions to Serina’s transition from private to public company and our positioning for future growth.” About the POZ Platform™ Serina’s proprietary POZ technology is based on a synthetic, water soluble, low viscosity polymer called poly(2-oxazoline). Serina’s POZ technology is engineered to provide greater control in drug loading and more precision in the rate of release of attached drugs delivered via subcutaneous injection. The therapeutic agents in Serina’s product candidates are typically well-understood and marketed drugs that are effective but may be limited by pharmacokinetic profiles that can include toxicity, side effects and short half-life. Serina believes that by using POZ technology, drugs with narrow therapeutic windows can be designed to maintain more desirable and stable levels in the blood. Serina’s POZ platform delivery technology has potential for use across a broad range of payloads and indications. Serina intends to advance additional applications of the POZ platform via out-licensing, co-development, or other partnership arrangements, including the non-exclusive license agreement with Pfizer, Inc. to use Serina’s POZ polymer technology for use in lipid nanoparticle drug (LNP) delivery formulations. About Serina Therapeutics Serina is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a pipeline of wholly owned drug product candidates to treat neurological diseases and other indications. Serina’s POZ PlatformTM provides the potential to improve the integrated efficacy and safety profile of multiple modalities including small molecules, RNA-based therapeutics and antibody-based drug conjugates (ADCs). Serina is headquartered in Huntsville, Alabama on the campus of the HudsonAlpha Institute of Biotechnology. For more information, please visit https://serinatherapeutics.com. Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statement This release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of federal securities laws. These statements are based on management’s current expectations, plans, beliefs or forecasts for the future, and are subject to uncertainty and changes in circumstances. Any express or implied statements in this press release that are not statements of historical fact, including statements about the potential of Serina’s POZ polymer technology, are forward-looking statements that involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Risks and uncertainties include, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including the ability to meet anticipated clinical endpoints, commencement and/or completion dates for clinical trials, regulatory submission dates, regulatory approval dates and/or launch dates, as well as the possibility of unfavorable new clinical data and further analyses of existing clinical data; the risk that clinical trial data are subject to differing interpretations and assessments by regulatory authorities; whether regulatory authorities will be satisfied with the design of and results from our clinical studies; whether and when any applications may be filed for any drug or vaccine candidates in any jurisdictions; whether and when regulatory authorities may approve any potential applications that may be filed for any drug or vaccine candidates in any jurisdictions, which will depend on a myriad of factors, including making a determination as to whether the product’s benefits outweigh its known risks and determination of the product’s efficacy and, if approved, whether any such drug or vaccine candidates will be commercially successful; decisions by regulatory authorities impacting labeling, manufacturing processes, safety and/or other matters that could affect the availability or commercial potential of any drug or vaccine candidates; and competitive developments. These risks as well as other risks are more fully discussed in the company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2023, the company’s Current Report on Form 8-K that was filed with the SEC on April 1, 2024, and the company’s other periodic reports and documents filed from time to time with the SEC. The information contained in this release is as of the date hereof, and Serina assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements contained in this release as the result of new information or future events or developments. For inquiries, please contact:Stefan Riley sriley@serinatherapeutics.com (256) 327-9630

Six years ago, Chinese researcher He Jiankui stunned the world by announcing the birth of the first two babies whose genes were edited as embryos. An ethical red line was crossed and condemnation from his peers was swift. Nature reportedly rejected a paper describing his work. Top scientists called for a moratorium on embryo editing. And with many other ways to alter genes in adults and children, tampering with the earliest stage of life seemed unnecessary. So imagine the surprise when Nature, one of the world’s top scientific journals, this week published an article suggesting that embryo editing could play a role in preventing society’s most burdensome diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and schizophrenia. “It’s kicking a sleeping dog,” bioethicist and Stanford law professor Hank Greely told me when I asked him about the work. The paper , led by Peter Visscher, a geneticist at the University of Queensland in Australia, builds on nearly two decades of genome-wide association studies that have pinpointed thousands of unique genetic variants that raise or lower the risk of disease — so-called polygenic traits. On their own, the impact of most of these variants is modest, but the new study models how the cumulative effect of key variants could “theoretically yield extreme reductions in disease susceptibility.” The argument is tantalizing. Visscher and his colleagues suggest that editing 10 tidbits of DNA could reduce the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease or schizophrenia by nearly 10-fold. Another 10 edits could diminish coronary artery disease by more than 30-fold, and 10 more edits could cut type 2 diabetes by roughly 60-fold. But doing so is also certain to be controversial, both at a scientific and moral level. Embryo editing, let alone polygenic editing, is nowhere close to ready. Every additional edit is another chance for something to go wrong, and the genome can only handle so much abuse at once. While the Nature authors acknowledge that making tens or hundreds of edits in one fell swoop is not technically feasible today, they believe it might be within 30 years. In other words, today’s infants will be tomorrow’s parents, so the time to start seriously debating the possibility is now. Nature published its own editorial that aims to justify the article with a similar argument, saying the prospect of polygenic embryo editing “is not a hypothetical issue” and that we “need to consider relevant benefits and risks before that day comes.” Not everyone agrees. “The article, as published, has a greater likelihood of doing harm than doing good,” Greely told me. “There are arguments for it and arguments against it. I don’t think it’s a crazy idea if it was proven to be safe and effective, but it’s so far from being proven safe and effective that it’s not worth talking about now.” Last summer, as Nature considered Visscher’s article, it asked Greely, who wrote a book on the CRISPR babies scandal in China, to pen a commentary in response. Greely and two biologists who brought a technical perspective scrambled to write it in a few weeks. But Greely said Nature kept pushing back publication of the two articles until they finally appeared online last week. It’s not hard to imagine a debate amongst Nature’ s editors about whether to publish. The journal appears to have been deliberating for some time — the paper notes that Visscher submitted it in June 2022, and that it underwent at least three rounds of extensive peer review. The reviewers’ comments, documented across a 48-page supplement , reveal that an early draft broached the thorniest of all topics: using gene editing to enhance intelligence. (The IQ discussion was removed from the final publication.) Greely’s commentary highlights some of the assumptions underpinning Visscher’s model, including that CRISPR gene editing always works perfectly (it doesn’t) and that the benefits of protective genetic variants are additive (which we don’t know for sure). Likewise, Visscher’s final paper is also stuffed with technical caveats and ethical considerations. The authors acknowledge that embryo editing “may deepen inequalities and raise the spectre of eugenics,” but they quickly pivot to say that it’s also important to consider the risk of not undertaking polygenic embryo editing — noting that potentially preventable common diseases will continue to burden individuals and societies. The obvious counter-argument is that many of these diseases can be treated with existing drugs or future ones. In fact, some CRISPR companies are already developing therapies for adults inspired by rare mutations in the ANGPTL3 and PCSK9 genes that lower cholesterol and reduce the risk of heart disease. Fyodor Urnov, a gene editing scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, who peer-reviewed Visscher’s paper, told me he recommended the authors discuss non-heritable therapies “as an ethical and realistic alternative.” The final paper admitted that such therapies “may be a superior option,” so long as they are cheap (not yet) and safe and effective (to be determined). Visscher argues that embryo editing will always have one advantage over traditional therapies. Its benefits would persist not only for an individual’s life, they would become part of the human gene pool. In a world where everyone could be born with a drastically reduced risk of common conditions, what would that mean for public health, individual patients, and drugmakers? Of course, any unintended harms from embryo editing would be just as permanent. The procedure, if it becomes feasible, would be on top of in vitro fertilization, meaning it’s unlikely to be cheap or widely accessible. The pharmaceutical industry can rest assured that designer babies are unlikely to chip away at their business any time soon. Yet with biotechs trying to justify $3 million price tags for gene therapies and then struggling to sell them, the one-and-done cures business is in need of disruption. Is embryo editing the answer? Many geneticists still steer clear of the question, which reeks of science fiction and career-ending headlines. But every year more and more medicines that sound like science fiction become real — think CAR-T cell therapies for cancer , the CRISPR therapy for sickle cell disease , and lab-grown blood vessels . After He Jiankui’s reckless experiment, the utility of embryo editing was so thoroughly castigated that few scientists have dared to publicly entertain the idea in the years following. But the genie is out of the bottle. Following his apparent imprisonment for a few years, He is back in the lab and continues to post on X about his dreams of an embryo-edited future. It’s easy to dismiss him as a quack or a cowboy, but Visscher’s paper shows that at least a few serious scientists are grappling with the fact that one of the great tropes of science fiction could soon see the “fiction” part could drop away. They’re probably not the only ones. —Ryan (This piece is from our perspectives and analysis newsletter, Post-Hoc. To get it delivered straight to your inbox, add Post-Hoc to your reader profile under the “Preferences” tab.)