GeoVax Appoints Dr. Marc Pipas as Executive Medical Director, Oncology

Strengthening GeoVax’s Team Advancing Gedeptin® Clinical Program

ATLANTA, GA, Jan. 08, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NewMediaWire – GeoVax Labs, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOVX), a biotechnology company developing immunotherapies and vaccines against cancers and infectious diseases, today announced the appointment of J. Marc Pipas, M.D., to serve as the Company’s Executive Medical Director, Oncology. 

Kelly McKee, M.D., MPH, GeoVax Chief Medical Officer, commented, “Dr. Pipas’ addition to our team represents an important step forward in the strengthening of GeoVax’s organizational and operational resources to support advancement of our principal oncology asset, Gedeptin®, through clinical development and regulatory approval.  He is also well-positioned to guide the clinical development of GeoVax’s broader immune-oncology portfolio. We are excited to leverage the wealth of knowledge, expertise, and insights he will provide relative to the clinical developments in support of our oncology programs.”

“I am pleased to be joining the GeoVax team,” said Dr. Pipas. “Oncologic research and development is my passion and I look forward to engaging with our clinical researchers, regulatory authorities, and the medical community at large, to advance GeoVax’s mission.”

Dr. Pipas has extensive clinical, research, and leadership expertise in oncology, built on a long and successful academic career at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center/Norris Cotton Cancer Center, an NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center.  During his academic career, Dr Pipas led the GI Clinical Oncology Group for >10 years, served as Hematology/Oncology Fellowship Director, was Medical Director for the Office of Clinical Research in the Cancer Center, and served for more than a decade as a member of Human Subject Protection and Data Monitoring Boards. Following his academic career, he held positions of increasing responsibility in the biopharma industry, guiding the development of several novel oncology therapeutics through early- and late-stage clinical trials.

Dr. Pipas received his Doctor of Medicine degree from SUNY-HSC at Syracuse in 1989 and completed a residency in Internal Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.  Following this, he completed a fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire and was then invited to become a faculty member at Dartmouth Medical School where he achieved the rank of Full Professor. He has 40 scientific papers and more than 60 abstracts to his credit and has numerous nominations and awards for teaching and humanism in medicine. Dr Pipas brings a deep understanding of oncologic therapeutics and clinical trial management, as well as a network of research contacts and leadership skills honed by many years of experience.

About GeoVax
GeoVax Labs, Inc. is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel therapies and vaccines for solid tumor cancers and many of the world’s most threatening infectious diseases. The company’s lead program in oncology is a novel oncolytic solid tumor gene-directed therapy, Gedeptin®, presently in a multicenter Phase 1/2 clinical trial for advanced head and neck cancers. GeoVax’s lead infectious disease candidate is GEO-CM04S1, a next-generation COVID-19 vaccine targeting high-risk immunocompromised patient populations. Currently in three Phase 2 clinical trials, GEO-CM04S1 is being evaluated as a primary vaccine for immunocompromised patients such as those suffering from hematologic cancers and other patient populations for whom the current authorized COVID-19 vaccines are insufficient, and as a booster vaccine in patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). In addition, GEO-CM04S1 is in a Phase 2 clinical trial evaluating the vaccine as a more robust, durable COVID-19 booster among healthy patients who previously received the mRNA vaccines. GeoVax has a leadership team who have driven significant value creation across multiple life science companies over the past several decades. For more information, visit our website: www.geovax.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements regarding GeoVax’s business plans. The words “believe,” “look forward to,” “may,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “should,” “plan,” “could,” “target,” “potential,” “is likely,” “will,” “expect” and similar expressions, as they relate to us, are intended to identify forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and financial trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy and financial needs. Actual results may differ materially from those included in these statements due to a variety of factors, including whether: GeoVax is able to obtain acceptable results from ongoing or future clinical trials of its investigational products, GeoVax’s immuno-oncology products and preventative vaccines can provoke the desired responses, and those products or vaccines can be used effectively, GeoVax’s viral vector technology adequately amplifies immune responses to cancer antigens, GeoVax can develop and manufacture its immuno-oncology products and preventative vaccines with the desired characteristics in a timely manner, GeoVax’s immuno-oncology products and preventative vaccines will be safe for human use, GeoVax’s vaccines will effectively prevent targeted infections in humans, GeoVax’s immuno-oncology products and preventative vaccines will receive regulatory approvals necessary to be licensed and marketed, GeoVax raises required capital to complete development, there is development of competitive products that may be more effective or easier to use than GeoVax’s products, GeoVax will be able to enter into favorable manufacturing and distribution agreements, and other factors, over which GeoVax has no control.

Further information on our risk factors is contained in our periodic reports on Form 10-Q and Form 10-K that we have filed and will file with the SEC. Any forward-looking statement made by us herein speaks only as of the date on which it is made. Factors or events that could cause our actual results to differ may emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for us to predict all of them. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future developments or otherwise, except as may be required by law.