Protagonist Therapeutics Appoints Bryan Giraudo to Board of Directors

NEWARK, Calif., May 16, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: PTGX) today announced the appointment of Bryan Giraudo to its Board of Directors. Mr. Giraudo currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of Gossamer Bio and was previously Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners.

“We are excited that Bryan has chosen to join the Protagonist board. He has a long and prominent track record of leading strategic, financial and corporate development transactions for top tier biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies,” said Dinesh V. Patel, Ph.D., Protagonist President and Chief Executive Officer. “His experience and insights are a great addition and complement to our board, and we are looking forward to his counsel in advancing our clinical pipeline of novel and potentially transformative peptide-based therapies.”

Prior to becoming Chief Financial Officer of Gossamer Bio in May 2018, Mr. Giraudo served as Senior Managing Director at Leerink Partners, where he was responsible for the firm’s Western North America and Asia biotechnology and pharmaceutical relationships. Mr. Giraudo has executed more than 150 initial public offerings, follow-on, convertible and structured debt and equity transactions, as well as product and company buy-side, sell-side and corporate collaboration strategic advisory assignments for biotechnology and pharmaceutical clients. Prior to joining Leerink in 2009, he was a Managing Director with Merrill Lynch in San Francisco. Mr. Giraudo received his B.A. from Georgetown University.

“Protagonist has a diverse portfolio of highly differentiated clinical assets, a novel peptide technology platform, and a strong management team that I believe has the potential to develop transformative medicines to address unmet medical needs,” said Mr. Giraudo. “I am pleased to be joining Protagonist’s Board of Directors and look forward to helping the company achieve its financial and strategic objectives and exploring multiple opportunities for success.”

About Protagonist Therapeutics
Protagonist Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company that utilizes a proprietary technology platform to discover and develop novel peptide-based drugs to transform existing treatment paradigms for patients with significant unmet medical needs. PTG-100 is an oral alpha-4-beta-7 integrin antagonist peptide that is being developed for potential treatment of inflammatory bowel diseases. The company’s interleukin-23 receptor antagonist peptide, PTG-200, is currently in a Phase 1 clinical trial in healthy volunteers to support a Phase 2 study in Crohn’s disease. The IL-12/23 pathway blockade is an approach that has been validated through an FDA-approved injectable antibody drug. The company has entered into a worldwide license and collaboration agreement with Janssen Biotech for the clinical development of PTG-200. Protagonist has also applied its innovative peptide platform outside of the GI disease areas and is developing an injectable hepcidin mimetic, PTG-300, for the potential treatment of anemia and iron overload related to rare blood diseases with an initial focus on beta-thalassemia. The Company has completed a Phase 1 clinical trial with PTG-300, which established pharmacodynamic-based clinical proof-of-concept in normal healthy volunteers. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted Orphan Drug Designation to PTG-300 for beta-thalassemia.

Protagonist is headquartered in Newark, California, with pre-clinical and clinical staff in California and discovery operations in both California and Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. For further information, please visit http://www.protagonist-inc.com.

CONTACT: Bioscribe, Inc., Michelle Linn, Tel: +1 774-696-3803, Email: michelle@bioscribe.com, OR For Investors: The Trout Group, Marcy Nanus, Tel: +1 646-378-2927, Email: mnanus@troutgroup.com