Selecta Biosciences Appoints Timothy C. Barabe to Board of Directors

WATERTOWN, Mass., Aug. 01, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Selecta Biosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:SELB), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted antigen-specific immune therapies for rare and serious diseases, today announced the election of Timothy C. Barabe to the company’s Board of Directors. Most recently serving as chief financial officer and executive vice president at Affymetrix Inc., Mr. Barabe has extensive experience in the life sciences industry, having held a broad range of financial and strategic roles.

“We are very pleased to welcome Tim to our Board. Tim is an industry veteran with decades of strong strategic and financial experience in the life sciences industry,” said Werner Cautreels, PhD, Chairman, CEO and President of Selecta Biosciences. “Tim’s exceptional grasp of the commercial and financial opportunities and challenges entailed in financing and growing Selecta will add significant strategic perspectives as we seek to advance candidates from Selecta’s pipeline portfolio in development.”

“I am very excited to be joining Selecta’s Board of Directors at this pivotal time as the company applies its novel technologies to generate a robust pipeline of candidates,” said Mr. Barabe. “Selecta’s novel immune therapies offer significant opportunities for the company to provide patients, providers and payors with meaningful new treatment options to address rare and serious diseases.”

Mr. Barabe has more than 30 years of experience in the life sciences industry. He served as the chief financial officer and executive vice president at Affymetrix Inc., where he led the company’s financial functions as well as the treasury, investor relations, and information technology departments. Previously, he served as senior vice president and chief financial officer at Human Genome Sciences, where he was responsible for working with the leadership team to drive the financial strategy and operations of the company. For more than 20 years, he held senior international executive roles in finance, general management, and strategic planning at Novartis AG, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. His roles included chief financial officer of the Sandoz Generics Business Unit, president of the CIBA Vision Corporation Specialty Lens Business Franchise, and group vice president and chief financial officer of CIBA Vision Corporation. Mr. Barabe has a B.B.A. in Finance from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. He also serves as a director of several public company boards, including ArQule, Opexa Therapeutics and Vigilant Biosciences.

About Selecta
Selecta Biosciences, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted therapies that use immunomodulators encapsulated in nanoparticles to induce antigen-specific immune responses to prevent and treat disease. Selecta’s proprietary Synthetic Vaccine Particle (SVP) technology is a highly flexible nanoparticle platform, capable of incorporating a wide range of antigens and immunomodulators, allowing the SVP products to either induce antigen-specific tolerance or activate the immune system.

Selecta's focus is on developing and commercializing differentiated therapies that are designed to modulate the immune system to effectively and safely treat rare diseases by mitigating the formation of anti-drug antibodies (ADAs) in response to life-sustaining biologic drugs. Tolerance-inducing SVP products also have potential applications in the treatment of allergies and autoimmune diseases.

Selecta is also developing SVP products that activate the immune system to prevent and treat cancer, infections and other diseases.

Selecta is based in Watertown, Massachusetts, USA.

Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including without limitation statements regarding the impact of Mr. Barabe’s appointment on our business and the treatment potential of our product candidates.

These forward-looking statements are based on management’s current expectations. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following: we have incurred significant losses and may never become profitable; our need for additional funding, which may not be available; our limited operating history; operating and financial restrictions from our credit facility and the charter of our Russian subsidiary; limitations on our ability to offset future tax income; the early stage of clinical development for our product candidates; the unproven approach of our SVP technology; our failure to capitalize on more profitable candidates or indications; the lengthy and expensive process of clinical drug development, which has an uncertain outcome; potential delays in enrollment of patients which could affect the receipt of necessary regulatory approvals; potential delays in regulatory approval, which would impact the ability to commercialize our product candidates and affect our ability to generate revenue; our potential inability to receive orphan drug designation; any fast track or Breakthrough Therapy designation may not lead to faster development, or regulatory or marketing approval; undesirable side effects of our product candidates, which could negatively impact regulatory approval or commercialization; our reliance on third parties to manufacture our product candidates, including 3SBio, our sole supplier of pegsiticase; our inability to maintain our existing or future collaborations or licenses; our reliance on third parties to conduct our clinical trials and the potential for those third parties to not perform satisfactorily; our lack of experience in manufacturing our product candidates on a commercial scale; the potential failure of our product candidates to achieve market acceptance; our lack of experience selling, marketing and distributing products and our lack of internal capability to do so; failure of our product candidates to offer material commercial advantages over other treatments; failure to compete successfully against other drug companies; unfavorable pricing regulations, third-party coverage, or reimbursement policies; product liability lawsuits; failure to obtain marketing approval internationally; compliance with healthcare laws and regulations; recently enacted or future legislation; post-marketing restrictions or withdrawal from the market; compliance with export and import controls, sanctions, embargoes, anti-corruption and anti-money laundering laws and regulations; strict price controls imposed by foreign governments; compliance with environmental, health, and safety laws and regulations; negative public opinion or increased regulatory scrutiny of gene therapy and genetic research; our ability to protect our proprietary technology and intellectual property and limitations of that protection; failure to identify or correctly interpret patents relevant to our business; our ability to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets and know-how; changes in United States patent law; intellectual property infringement lawsuits; our patents being found invalid or unenforceable; obtaining and maintaining patents; claims challenging the inventorship or ownership of our patents and other intellectual property; failure to comply with intellectual property licenses and funding arrangements; our inability to obtain or maintain necessary rights through acquisitions or in-licenses; claims that we or our employees misappropriated intellectual property or claiming ownership of our intellectual property; adequate protection of our trademarks and tradenames; ability to obtain FDA approval of product names; competition from biosimilars; ability to attract and retain key executives and qualified personnel; managing our growth could result in difficulties; risks associated with operating in Russia, including sanctions, and internationally; potential system failures; misconduct of our employees or contracted third parties; the effects of acquisitions or joint ventures; substantial fluctuation in the price of our common stock; our executive officers, directors, and principal stockholders have the ability to control or significantly influence matters submitted to stockholders; a drop in share price due to the significant portion of our total outstanding shares eligible to be sold into the market; being an “emerging growth company”; costs and resources of operating as a public company; unfavorable or no analyst research or reports; and securities class action litigation against us. 

These and other important factors discussed under the caption “Risk Factors” in our final prospectus filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, on June 23, 2016 relating to our Registration Statement on Form S-1, and our other reports filed with the SEC could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made in this press release. Any such forward-looking statements represent management’s estimates as of the date of this press release. While we may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause our views to change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

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