XORTX Therapeutics appoints Anthony Giovinazzo to its Board of Directors as Chair

– CANADA, Calgary –  XORTX Therapeutics Inc. ( TSX: XRTX | NASDAQ: XRTX | FRA: ANU), a late-stage clinical pharmaceutical company today announced the appointment of Anthony Giovinazzo to its Board of Directors as Chair.

“I am pleased to welcome Anthony to the board of directors and as Chair of the Board. Mr. Giovinazzo’s experience speaks for itself with decades of industry experience, including extensive patent portfolio building, pharmaceutical industry partnering, technology commercialization and company building experience. As Chair and a key member of the board of directors we believe that Anthony’s contributions will further strengthen XORTX’s ability to grow a high value pharmaceutical company.” said CEO, Dr. Allen Davidoff.

About Anthony J. Giovinazzo

Mr. Anthony Giovinazzo is an internationally recognized expert in intellectual property, drug development, and commercialization, including numerous licensing agreements, with more than 25 years of experience in Central Nervous System diseases. He was most recently, the co-inventor, CEO, and Director of Cynapsus Therapeutics, a NASDAQ listed specialty pharmaceutical company that developed the first successful sublingual apomorphine thin film strip for Parkinson’s disease. The drug today known as Kynmobi was approved for commercialization by the FDA on May 21, 2020. On June 15, 2020, Health Canada approved Kynmobi for sale in Canada. Mr. Giovinazzo was a co-inventor of the drug, built the leadership team, set the strategy, and raised US $136 million including an over-subscribed IPO and NASDAQ listing. He led the negotiations with several pharmaceutical companies that resulted in the CAD 841 million all-cash acquisition by Sunovion Pharmaceuticals (Dainippon Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals), a 120% premium to market close on the day of the announcement.

Mr. Giovinazzo is the current Executive Chair of Kalgene Inc., a Canadian/American private specialty pharmaceutical company focused on Alzheimer’s disease. Nalgene’s lead program KG207 is currently being evaluated as a potential best-in-class drug candidate for early to moderate Alzheimer’s. KG207 is currently an injection of a man-made large molecule that has been engineered to have significant penetration into the brain, to significantly reduce/eliminate brain hemorrhaging (a serious side effect of monoclonal antibodies approved and in development) for Alzheimer’s, and to selectively scavenge Toxic Oligomers (the known species of human proteins that kill neurons in the memory cascade). He is also a director of Titan Medical Inc., a developer of the Enos System, a robotics-assisted single port surgery system.

Mr. Giovinazzo is the co-author of several peer-reviewed papers and author of several papers on strategic and financing issues in the biopharmaceutical industry. During his career, he was involved in several licensing and M&A transactions. In addition, he has raised more than the US $825 million in private and public equity. In 2014, he was a Canadian finalist in Life Sciences for the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year and in 2017, he was the recipient of the Finance Monthly Game Changers award as well as having been chosen as the inaugural recipient of the Bloom Burton Award, which honors a single winner from several candidates, as the best of the best in Canadian Life Sciences as judged by a panel of US experts. He is a Chartered Director and Audit Committee Certified, both from The Directors College, a degree-granting affiliate of McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. He also completed the Leadership and Strategy in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech from Harvard Business School, Boston, Massachusetts in 2006, a Masters of Business Administration from IMD, Geneva, Switzerland in 1986, a Graduate Certificate Studies in Canadian Law from Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Ontario in 1984, and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Accounting from McMaster University in 1978.

Mr. Anthony Giovinazzo said, “I am delighted to join the board of XORTX and to become its Chair. The Company is pursuing a repositioning of a previously Food and Drug Administration reviewed drug for certain kidney diseases that is about to start a Phase 3 registration trial, a shorter and manageable process under the FDA Act, 505 (b) (2) regulatory path. In addition to designing a well-thought-out Phase 3 trial, Allen and his team have also chosen to undertake a dialogue with the FDA, through a Special Protocol Assessment to align the Company’s path to potential approvability with the FDA’s approvable endpoints.”

About XORTX Therapeutics Inc.

XORTX Therapeutics Inc. is a pharmaceutical company with two clinically advanced products in development – XRx-008 for Autosomal Dominant Polycystic Kidney Disease, XRx-101 for acute kidney and other acute organ injury associated with Coronavirus / COVID-19 infection and XRx-225 is a pre-clinical stage program for Type 2 Diabetic Nephropathy. XORTX is working to advance its clinical development-stage products that target aberrant purine metabolism and xanthine oxidase to decrease or inhibit the production of uric acid. At XORTX, we are dedicated to developing medications to improve the quality of life and the future health of patients.

For more information: https://www.xortx.com/

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Talent4Boards Team