– USA, MA – SQZ Biotechnologies, a cell therapy company developing novel treatments for multiple therapeutic areas, today announced the appointment of Volker Herrmann, MD, MBA, as Chief Operating Officer and President and Pushkal Garg, MD, to the Company’s Board of Directors.
“We couldn’t be more excited about our latest additions to the team,” said Armon Sharei, PhD, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of SQZ. “Volker’s depth of experience across different sectors of the industry is the perfect fit for us as we rapidly scale our complex business and his strong cultural fit make him an excellent addition to the senior leadership team. In addition, Pushkal’s appointment to the board will not only bring us his strong experience in clinical development but his passion and judgement for guiding the evolution of an impactful therapeutic platform.”
Dr. Herrmann will be leading all business development activities and will play a defining role in shaping SQZ’s corporate strategy, operations and communications. He has more than 20 years of experience in marketing, sales, general management, commercial strategy and market access. Dr. Herrmann served 17 years at Pfizer where he held leadership roles for a variety of therapeutic areas. Some of his past leadership roles include the startup of a new service and solutions business unit and serving as the Head of Global Strategy, Marketing, and Commercial for Pfizer’s Vaccines Business Unit. Subsequently, he served as the Chief Commercial Officer for Viamet Pharmaceuticals where he was responsible for preparing the organization for the launch of their first commercial product as well as streamlining the company’s pipeline. Before joining SQZ, he was the Chief Operating Officer of Selenity Therapeutics. Dr. Herrmann received his MD from Albert-Ludwigs University in Germany and an MBA from the University of San Diego, School of Graduate Business.
“SQZ has made significant progress as a platform company on the forefront of the new age of cell therapies, and the validating collaboration with Roche is a strong testament to that,” said Dr. Hermann. “I look forward to bringing my global experience and broad commercial and operational perspective to this talented team. I am exhilarated by the work they have done, and very excited about the platform’s potential to generate a pipeline full of life changing therapies for patients.”
Dr. Garg has more than 15 years of experience in biopharmaceutical clinical research and development, and currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. There he is responsible for leading the clinical development of Alnylam’s RNAi therapeutics across all indications and all stages of development, which recently culminated in the approval of patisiran (Onpattro™) in the US and Europe. Previously, Dr. Garg held clinical research and development roles of increasing responsibility at Bristol-Myers Squibb, most recently as the Vice President of Global Clinical Research in Immunoscience. From 2001-2006 he served as the Senior Director of Clinical Development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Dr. Garg earned his MD and did his clinical training at the University of California, San Francisco and completed a fellowship at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
“It is rare to have the opportunity to work with a company like SQZ, a true platform company with applications across therapeutic areas,” said Dr. Garg. “I am incredibly excited to work with the talented board and team to help transform SQZ into a clinical stage company and bring its innovative cellular therapies to patients in need.”
About SQZ Biotech
SQZ Biotechnologies is a Massachusetts-based, privately held company developing cellular therapies for multiple therapeutic areas using their proprietary cell therapy platform. SQZ enables robust, scalable delivery of materials to direct natural cell functions with minimal impact on cell health and is being used to develop a new generation of therapies. The first applications for the company leverage SQZ’s ability to generate target-specific immune responses, both in activation for the treatment of solid tumors, and immune suppression for the treatment of auto-immune diseases.
For more information please visit www.sqzbiotech.com.
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