Xencor

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Xencor Expands Management Team; Leverages $50 Million Series C Financing to Fuel Development Efforts

(BW Healthwire)--July 19, 2001---Xencor today announced that E.William Radany, Ph.D. has joined the company as Chief Business Officer and Joyce L. Morrison has joined as Vice President, Intellectual Property. Each has over 15 years of experience in their field working with life science companies. Xencor has used the proceeds from its November, 2000 Series C financing to develop a novel platform for the study of molecular interactions for the generation of new therapeutics and agricultural products using its proprietary ProCode(tm) technology. Xencor has also expanded its protein optimization programs using its Protein Design Automation(tm) (PDA(tm)) technology. The addition of Dr. Radany and Ms. Morrison will enable Xencor to secure the alliances, partnerships and intellectual property estate necessary to accelerate the development and commercialization of its own line of protein-based products, according to Bassil Dahiyat, Ph.D. President and CEO of Xencor. “Xencor will clearly benefit from the extensive experience Bill and Joyce bring to the company,“ Dr. Dahiyat said. “Bill will be in charge of Xencor's business development efforts, focusing on securing alliances and partnerships with pharmaceutical, agricultural and chemical companies for the high-throughput analysis and optimization of proteins using our ProCode and PDA technologies. Joyce will be responsible for securing and expanding the patent estate surrounding these proprietary technologies and the novel compounds Xencor identifies using them, and will assist in structuring our alliances to maximize the value of our intellectual property.“ Dr. Radany joins Xencor from Caliper Technologies Corporation where he was Vice President, Drug Discovery Program and was successful in the development and management of corporate alliances with leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies including, Roche, Amgen, Eli Lilly, Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Sugen. Previously, he was founder and president of NeoGenex, a developer of reagents for viral diagnostics and held executive management positions with Stratagene, Biacore and Pharmacia Biosensor. During his tenure with these companies he was successful in business development and in turning novel approaches into commercial products. Dr. Radany received a B.S in Cell Biology from Colorado Sate University and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry/Physiology from the University of Wyoming. Ms. Morrison was previously Chief Counsel, Intellectual Property with Hercules Incorporated, a global leader in the specialty chemicals market, where she managed and directed worldwide intellectual property matters including strategic portfolio development and the transaction and litigation efforts for the company. Prior to joining Hercules, she was Managing Counsel, Intellectual Property for BASF Corporation, where she oversaw the IP functions of the life sciences division, including its agricultural products group and Knoll Pharmaceutical Company. Her intellectual property experience also includes work at Centocor, Westinghouse Electric and several years as Patent Examiner with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Ms. Morrison has a B.S. in Chemistry from Grove City College and a J.D. from the Dickinson School of Law of Pennsylvania State University. Xencor, a privately held company, is focused on using its cutting edge protein analysis and optimization technologies to accelerate the discovery of therapeutic proteins and novel compounds. With its proprietary ProCode(tm) and Protein Design Automation(tm) (PDA(tm)) technologies, Xencor scientists can rapidly determine the interactions and functions of a cell's entire protein complement, identify proteins of interest, and then optimize key properties of these proteins to fit commercial applications. The use of these technologies alone or in combination will accelerate the compound identification and development programs of Xencor's strategic partners in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural and chemical industries. Xencor is headquartered in Monrovia, California.