Centessa Pharmaceuticals Expands Management Team and Adds to Extensive Development Expertise

BOSTON and LONDON, March 07, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Centessa Pharmaceuticals plc (Nasdaq: CNTA) (the "Company”), a clinical-stage company leveraging its innovative asset-centric business model to discover, develop and ultimately deliver impactful medicines to patients, today announced that Antoine Yver, MD, MSc, has been appointed Executive Vice President and Chairman of Development. In this newly created role reporting to the CEO, Dr. Yver will be accountable for the Company’s overall development strategy, including scientific, clinical and regulatory matters, and will continue to provide support to research and clinical development teams.

As a result of Dr. Yver taking on this elevated role, Javad Shahidi, MD, MSc, has joined the Company as Chief Medical Officer reporting to the CEO. Dr. Shahidi will oversee the clinical development teams and will be directly responsible for the overall design, delivery and management of clinical development, regulatory and medical affairs across Centessa.

"We continue to add exceptional talent to our team as we plan several registrational trials and have multiple assets entering the clinic,” said Saurabh Saha, MD, PhD, Chief Executive Officer of Centessa. "Javad’s proven track-record of rapidly scaling and delivering highly innovative and impactful clinical development programs in a short period of time will be a significant advantage to us as we progress our portfolio over the next several years.”

"I look forward to working with Javad again as we continue to grow Centessa with this incredible portfolio of assets and come closer to bringing impactful new medicines to patients,” said Dr. Yver.

Dr. Shahidi added, "I am thrilled to be joining Centessa with its unique asset-centric model and working with Saurabh, Antoine, and the entire team of experienced drug developers, subject matter experts and industry leaders. I am excited by this opportunity to advance the many innovative oncology and rare disease programs at Centessa.”

Dr. Shahidi brings significant industry experience, most recently as Vice President - Global R&D at Daiichi Sankyo, where he led the development of ENHERTU®, one of the largest development programs in oncology, and served as the Chair of the Joint Leadership Team of the ENHERTU AstraZeneca/Daiichi Sankyo collaboration. Over the past decade, he has had increasing responsibilities in clinical development. Prior to joining Daiichi Sankyo in 2017, Dr. Shahidi was the Global Medical Lead at Eli Lilly and Company, leading the clinical development of ALIMTA® and PORTRAZZA®. Dr. Shahidi received his MD from Beheshti Medical University in Tehran, an MSc in Experimental Medicine from McGill University, and a graduate diploma in clinical research from McGill University.

About Centessa Pharmaceuticals
Centessa Pharmaceuticals plc ("Centessa”) aims to bring impactful new medicines to patients by combining the strengths of an asset-centric model with the benefits of scale and diversification typical of larger R&D organizations. Centessa’s programs range from discovery-stage to late-stage development and include diverse therapeutic areas such as oncology, hematology, immunology/inflammation, neuroscience, hepatology, pulmonology and nephrology. For more information, visit www.centessa.com.

Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by words such as "aims,” "anticipates,” "believes,” "could,” "estimates,” "expects,” "forecasts,” "goal,” "intends,” "may,” "plans,” "possible,” "potential,” "seeks,” "will,” and variations of these words or similar expressions that are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Any such statements in this press release that are not statements of historical fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements, including statements related to the Company’s ability to deliver impactful medicines to patients; the ability of our key executives to drive execution of the Company’s portfolio of programs; our asset-centric business model and the intended advantages and benefits thereof; research and clinical development plans; the scope, progress, results and costs of developing our product candidates or any other future product candidates; the design, scope and purpose of our ongoing studies; the development and therapeutic potential of our product candidates; strategy; regulatory matters, including the timing and likelihood of success of obtaining approvals to initiate or continue clinical trials or market any products; and market size and opportunity for our product candidates. Any forward-looking statements in this press release are based on our current expectations, estimates and projections only as of the date of this release 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 our ability to protect and maintain our intellectual property position; business, regulatory, economic and competitive risks, uncertainties, contingencies and assumptions about the Company; risks inherent in developing products and technologies; future results from our ongoing and planned clinical trials; our ability to obtain adequate financing to fund our planned clinical trials and other expenses; trends in the industry; the legal and regulatory framework for the industry, including the receipt and maintenance of clearances to conduct or continue clinical testing; future expenditures risks related to our asset-centric corporate model; the risk that any one or more of our product candidates will not be successfully developed 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; and risks related to the COVID-19 pandemic including the effects of the Delta, Omicron and any other variants. These and other risks concerning our programs and operations are described in additional detail in our most recent Form 10-Q, which is on file with the SEC. We explicitly disclaim any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except to the extent required by law.

Contacts:

Investors:
investors@centessa.com

John Fraunces, LifeSci Advisors
jfraunces@lifesciadvisors.com

Media:
media@centessa.com