Intellia Therapeutics Names James Basta, J.D., as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., June 24, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --  Intellia Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NTLA), a leading genome editing company focused on developing curative therapeutics using CRISPR/Cas9 technology both in vivo and ex vivo, today announced the appointment of James Basta, J.D., as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary.

Mr. Basta is coming to Intellia with more than 25 years of combined in-house corporate and law firm experience, most recently as Chief Legal Officer at Kura Oncology. Prior to Kura, Mr. Basta served in various roles in the legal department at Biogen including as Senior Vice President, Chief Corporation Counsel, where he managed the legal representation for Biogen’s securities filings, board of directors, business development, finance and tax, corporate affairs, employment and information technology. Prior to joining Biogen in 2006, he was a Partner at Baker & McKenzie.

Mr. Basta succeeds José Rivera, one of Intellia’s founding employees in 2014, who has served as Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, since then. Mr. Rivera will serve as special advisor to Mr. Basta to ensure a smooth transition and advise on key legal matters.

“We are thrilled to welcome Jim, who brings a wealth of experience across a diverse range of legal activities including supporting research and development, business development, partnering and corporate stewardship. He is a strong addition to our executive leadership team as we advance our clinical programs with the goal of developing curative genome editing therapies for patients across the globe,” said Intellia President and Chief Executive Officer John Leonard, M.D. “We also thank José for his leadership and ceaseless devotion to Intellia as we grew from an idea to a clinical-stage company. He has been an essential partner to me and the company, and we look forward to continuing to work with him as he transitions into a new chapter in his life.”

Mr. Basta serves on the Executive Advisory Board of the Chemistry Life Processes Institute at Northwestern University. He earned his J.D. from Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and his B.A. in economics from Northwestern University.

About Intellia Therapeutics
Intellia Therapeutics is a leading clinical-stage genome editing company, focused on the development of proprietary, potentially curative therapeutics using the CRISPR/Cas9 system. Intellia believes the CRISPR/Cas9 technology has the potential to transform medicine by both producing therapeutics that permanently edit and/or correct disease-associated genes in the human body with a single administration, and creating enhanced engineered cells that can treat oncological and immunological diseases. Intellia’s combination of deep scientific, technical and clinical development experience, along with its leading intellectual property portfolio, puts it in a unique position to unlock broad therapeutic applications of the CRISPR/Cas9 technology and create new classes of therapeutic products. Learn more about Intellia and CRISPR/Cas9 at intelliatx.com. Follow us on Twitter @intelliatweets.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains “forward-looking statements” of Intellia Therapeutics, Inc. (“Intellia”) within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, express or implied statements regarding Intellia’s ability to advance and expand the CRISPR/Cas9 technology to develop into human therapeutic products, as well as our CRISPR/Cas9 intellectual property portfolio; achieve stable or effective genome editing; the timing and potential achievement of milestones to advance our pipeline and grow as a company; and the anticipated contribution of the members of our board of directors and our executives to our operations and progress.

Any forward-looking statements in this press release are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: risks related to Intellia’s ability to protect and maintain its intellectual property position; risks related to Intellia’s relationship with third parties, including its licensors and licensees; risks related to the ability of its licensors to protect and maintain their intellectual property position; uncertainties related to the authorization, initiation and conduct of studies and other development requirements for its product candidates; the risk that any one or more of Intellia’s product candidates will not be successfully developed, manufactured and commercialized; the risk that the results of preclinical studies or clinical studies will not be predictive of future results in connection with future studies; the risk that Intellia may not be able to meet or comply with applicable laws and regulations, including clinical, manufacturing and commercialization requirements; and the risk that Intellia’s collaborations with Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc. or Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. or its other ex vivo collaborations will not continue or will not be successful. For a discussion of these and other risks and uncertainties, and other important factors, any of which could cause Intellia’s actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see the section entitled “Risk Factors” in Intellia’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties, and other important factors in Intellia’s other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). All information in this press release is as of the date of the release, and Intellia undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.

Intellia Contacts:

Investors:

Lina Li
Director
Investor Relations
+1-857-706-1612
lina.li@intelliatx.com

Media:

Julie Ferguson
(Interim) Head of External Affairs & Communications
+1-312-385-0098
julie.ferguson@intelliatx.com