Dr. Taapken contributes significant public company leadership experience, financing and strategic transaction expertise
Martinsried/Munich, Germany, 22 November 2016. Medigene AG (MDG1, Frankfurt, Prime Standard), a clinical stage immuno-oncology company focusing on the development of T-cell immunotherapies for the treatment of cancer, today announced that its Supervisory Board has appointed Dr. Thomas Taapken as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as of 1 January 2017. As a member of Executive Management working at the Munich headquarters of Medigene, Dr. Taapken will assume the CFO responsibilities which were temporarily taken over by the Company's Chief Operating Officer (COO). Additional administrational tasks taken over from the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) will also be of part his duties.
Most recently, Dr. Taapken spent more than five years at Epigenomics AG, initially as CFO and subsequently, from October 2012, as its CEO/CFO. He led the company's efforts in gaining regulatory approval for the first blood-based molecular diagnostic cancer screening test by the FDA and oversaw its subsequent introduction into the US market. Before his time at Epigenomics, Dr. Taapken served as CFO at Biotie Therapies Corp. (now Acorda Therapeutics) and its predecessor companies for six years. His extensive international experience in the life sciences industry also includes over seven years as a venture capital investor at DVC Deutsche Venture Capital and San Francisco-based US venture capital firm Burrill & Company. Prior to that, he worked several years at Sanofi (originally Hoechst AG) in the United States and Germany, managing corporate venture capital activities, as well as in the areas of corporate & business development and research. Throughout his career, Dr. Taapken has been involved in numerous transactions spanning acquisitions, mergers and divestitures and helped to raise over EUR 100 m through private and public offerings for those companies where he served in executive positions.
Prof. Horst Domdey, Chairman of Medigene's Supervisory Board, said: "With Thomas' appointment, we have found the ideal CFO to bring Medigene to the next level of development based on the Company's continued progress. He provides exactly the right skill set and industry experience that we were looking for over the past months He has an outstanding track record of achievements in his previous positions and the Supervisory Board believes he will be a great team contributor and driving force in the Company's Management Team."
On his appointment as CFO of Medigene, Thomas Taapken commented: "I have been impressed with Medigene's transformation into a very innovative immuno-oncology company in recent years, which is aiming to further increase its footprint in this very exciting area of our industry. I very much look forward to contributing to its success during the important next phase of Medigene's corporate development and to work closely and collaboratively with Medigene's outstanding leadership team."
Prof. Dolores Schendel, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Medigene, added: "On behalf of the Management Team I welcome Thomas as our new CFO. We share the same vision of developing Medigene into a success story in the cancer immunotherapy field and the addition of Thomas' transactional and financing experience will be instrumental in the continued development of the Company. I look forward to working closely with him to forge a successful future for Medigene."
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Medigene AG is a publicly listed (Frankfurt: MDG1, prime standard) biotechnology company headquartered in Martinsried near Munich, Germany. The Company develops highly innovative, complementary treatment platforms to target various forms and stages of cancer with drug candidates in clinical and pre-clinical development. Medigene concentrates on the development of personalized T-cell-based immunotherapies.
More information is available at www.medigene.de
This press release contains certain statements relating to the future. They represent the opinion of Medigene as of the date of this release. The actual results achieved by Medigene may differ significantly from the forward-looking statements made herein. Medigene is not bound to update any of these forward-looking statements Medigene is a registered trademark of Medigene AG. This trademark may be held or licensed for specific countries.
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