Rubius Therapeutics Appoints Kris Elverum as Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategy

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 25, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rubius Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq:RUBY), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that is generating red blood cells and bioengineering them into an entirely new class of cellular medicines, today announced the appointment of Kris Elverum as senior vice president of business development and strategy. In his role, Kris will be responsible for developing the Company’s corporate strategy and creating and executing new business development opportunities.

“As we continue to advance our promising pipeline of Red Cell Therapeutics™ for the potential treatment of rare diseases, cancer and autoimmune diseases, our corporate growth strategy is a crucial part of bringing our new treatment options to patients worldwide,” said Pablo J. Cagnoni, M.D., chief executive officer. “Kris brings extensive experience in business development, sales and marketing, and global strategy, and we are pleased to have him join the leadership team at Rubius.”

Kris joins Rubius from Turnstone Biologics, where he led the negotiation of the largest strategic partnership in the oncolytic virus field and in-licensed multiple technologies. Prior to Turnstone, Kris was with SQZ Biotech and played an integral role negotiating a pharmaceutical research partnership. Earlier in his career, Kris worked at Novartis, where he held roles in CAR-T cell therapy launch planning, neuroscience sales and marketing, and Sandoz global strategy and market intelligence. Kris began his career at McKinsey & Co., earned an M.B.A. and a B.S. from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, and recently published a review in Nature on commercializing cell and gene therapies.

“Rubius Therapeutics’ RED PLATFORM® has the potential to transform the treatment of a number of diseases and establishing innovative partnerships will help to deliver these therapies to more patients in need,” said Kris Elverum, senior vice president of business development and strategy. “I’m excited to join at such an important inflection point as Rubius advances its first Red Cell Therapeutic, which is for the potential treatment of phenylketonuria.”

With Kris’ appointment, Nathan Dowden, formerly senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at Rubius Therapeutics, will be departing the organization following a transitional period.

“During Nate’s time at Rubius, he was instrumental in building the business development and strategy organization,” continued Dr. Cagnoni. “We thank him for his many contributions and wish him well on his next endeavor.”

About Rubius Therapeutics

Rubius Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of medicines called Red Cell Therapeutics™. The Company’s proprietary RED PLATFORM® was designed to genetically engineer and culture Red Cell Therapeutics™ that are selective, potent and off-the-shelf allogeneic cellular therapies for the potential treatment of several diseases across multiple therapeutic areas. Rubius’ initial focus is to advance RCT™ product candidates for the treatment of rare diseases, cancer and autoimmune diseases by leveraging three distinct therapeutic modalities — cellular shielding, potent cell-cell interaction and tolerance induction. For more information, visit www.rubiustx.com, or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, known as the PSLRA. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding our strategy, future operations, future financial position, future revenue, projected costs, prospects, plan, objectives of management and expected market growth are forward-looking statements. You can identify these forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “outlook,” “believes,” “expects,” “potential,” “continues,” “may,” “will,” “should,” “seeks,” “approximately,” “predicts,” “intends,” “plans,” “estimates,” “anticipates” or the negative version of these words or other comparable words. Such forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Accordingly, there are or will be important factors that could cause actual outcomes or results to differ materially from those indicated in these statements. We believe these factors include but are not limited to those described under “Risk Factors” in our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2019, as well as those described in our subsequent filings with the SEC. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date hereof, and we make no commitment to update or publicly release any revisions to forward-looking statements in order to reflect new information or subsequent events, circumstances or changes in expectations.