Precigen Strengthens Focus on Strategic Partnerships and Names Gaurav Vij Head of Business Development

GERMANTOWN, Md., Oct. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Precigen, Inc. (Nasdaq: PGEN), a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of innovative gene and cell therapies to improve the lives of patients, today named Gaurav Vij as the Company’s head of business development. Mr. Vij will have responsibility for accelerating strategic business development activities across Precigen’s platform and pipeline programs, including identifying and building new strategic partnerships to rapidly progress core assets. Mr. Vij will report to Precigen’s President and CEO, Helen Sabzevari, PhD, and will join Precigen’s leadership team. This position adds to the ongoing evolution of Precigen’s leadership team and supports the Company’s continued focus on healthcare and strategic partnering of our innovative preclinical and clinical portfolio.

Mr. Vij brings to Precigen more than 18 years of diverse industry experience, including more than 10 years focused exclusively in the biotech industry. His transaction experience includes early stage research collaborations, late stage clinical partnerships, and corporate mergers and acquisitions with both domestic and international companies. While his primary focus has been in the field of oncology, Mr. Vij has also been involved in transactions in additional therapeutic areas, including nephrology, autoimmune, metabolic, inflammation and ophthalmology.

Mr. Vij joins Precigen from Gilead Sciences where he led efforts to successfully close multiple oncology transactions of high impact and value to Gilead’s pipeline. At Gilead, Mr. Vij recently led the acquisition of Forty Seven Inc. and successfully executed on a broad and strategic research collaboration with Tango Therapeutics. During his tenure with Gilead, Mr. Vij played an instrumental role in developing the oncology strategy and a diversified portfolio across all stages of development. Prior to Gilead, Mr. Vij worked in corporate development roles at Amgen and Shire Pharmaceuticals. At Amgen, Mr. Vij played a critical role in the acquisition of Onyx Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Vij earned an MBA from the University of Michigan and completed an MS from Wayne State University and a BS from the Punjab Engineering College in India.

Strategic partnerships are one of Precigen’s operating principles designed to maximize value and deliver potentially life-saving therapies to patients with unmet need. Precigen has rapidly built a portfolio of preclinical and clinical assets that have shown early promise.

“We understand that some of our programs may be best developed by Precigen and, in other cases, we may create greater value by partnering,” said Helen Sabzevari, PhD, President and CEO of Precigen. “This is why we need a strong business development leader like Gaurav. Gaurav’s experience and past leadership position him to guide and drive strategic partnerships for our future success.”

“I am honored to join Helen and her leadership team as they continue to advance a robust portfolio of first-in-class therapeutic programs across various diseases,” Mr. Vij said. “Precigen is an exciting company with novel technology platforms to develop highly innovative drugs across therapeutics. I look forward to establishing strategic partnerships for Precigen’s programs.”

Precigen: Advancing Medicine with Precision^™
Precigen (Nasdaq: PGEN) is a dedicated discovery and clinical stage biopharmaceutical company advancing the next generation of gene and cell therapies using precision technology to target urgent and intractable diseases in our core therapeutic areas of immuno-oncology, autoimmune disorders, and infectious diseases. Our technologies enable us to find innovative solutions for affordable biotherapeutics in a controlled manner. Precigen operates as an innovation engine progressing a preclinical and clinical pipeline of well-differentiated unique therapies toward clinical proof-of-concept and commercialization. For more information about Precigen, visit www.precigen.com or follow us on LinkedIn.

Trademarks
Precigen and Advancing Medicine with Precision are trademarks of Precigen and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Some of the statements made in this press release are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are based upon the Company’s current expectations and projections about future events and generally relate to plans, objectives, and expectations for the development of the Company’s business, including the timing and progress of preclinical studies, clinical trials, discovery programs and related milestones, the promise of the Company’s portfolio of therapies, and in particular its CAR-T therapies, and the Company’s refocus to a healthcare-oriented business. Although management believes that the plans and objectives reflected in or suggested by these forward-looking statements are reasonable, all forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including the possibility that the timeline for the Company’s clinical trials might be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, and actual future results may be materially different from the plans, objectives and expectations expressed in this press release. The Company has no obligation to provide any updates to these forward-looking statements even if its expectations change. All forward-looking statements are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement. For further information on potential risks and uncertainties, and other important factors, any of which could cause the Company’s actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see the section entitled “Risk Factors” in the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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SOURCE Precigen, Inc.