BERKELEY, Calif., June 2, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Aduro Biotech, Inc. (Nasdaq:ADRO) today announced that Liana Wu has joined the company as vice president, commercial. Ms. Wu, a commercial leader with over 17 years of experience in marketing, sales, and market research in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, has a proven record in strategy development, new product planning, market analysis and successful product launches.
"Liana is an essential addition to our organization as we advance our immunotherapy programs into late stage clinical trials and set our sights towards commercialization," said Stephen T. Isaacs, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Aduro. "She is a veteran commercial executive with particular expertise in oncology and we are pleased to have her join us to lead activities related to preparing for potential commercialization."
Prior to joining Aduro, Ms. Wu spent nine years at Onyx Pharmaceuticals (now Amgen) where she was most recently vice president, Oncology Franchise. While at Onyx, she was instrumental in overseeing the collaboration with Bayer for Nexavar and Stivarga in the U.S. Additionally, she supported the Kyprolis launch in the U.S. and commercial expansion in ex-U.S. regions. Prior to Onyx, Ms. Wu held several sales and marketing positions at Genentech, with responsibilities associated with the company's key oncology brands, Rituxan, Herceptin, and Tarceva. Ms. Wu holds a Master's in Public Health from The Johns Hopkins University and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
About Aduro
Aduro Biotech, Inc. is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company focused on the development of technology platforms to stimulate an immune response against cancer. Aduro's lead platform is based on proprietary strains of live-attenuated, double-deleted (LADD) Listeria monocytogenes that induce a potent innate immune response and have been engineered to express tumor-associated antigens to induce tumor-specific T cell-mediated immunity. Aduro has received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the FDA for its lead LADD regimen, CRS-207 in combination with GVAX Pancreas in pancreatic cancer. The company is evaluating the proprietary immuno-oncology combination in the ongoing Phase 2b ECLIPSE clinical trial and has additional ongoing clinical trials with its LADD platform in mesothelioma and glioblastoma. The company is also developing clinical candidates using cyclic dinucleotide (CDN) synthetic small molecule immune modulators that are designed to activate the intracellular STING receptor, a central mediator of the innate immune response. For more information, please visit www.aduro.com.
Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding our intentions or current expectations concerning, among other things, the potential for our technology, plans and timing of our clinical trials and the potential for eventual regulatory approval, commercialization and launch of our product candidates. In some cases you can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as "believe," "may," "will," "estimate," "continue," "anticipate," "intend," "could," "would," "project," "plan," "expect" or the negative or plural of these words or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those anticipated, including, but not limited to, our history of net operating losses and uncertainty regarding our ability to achieve profitability, our ability to develop and commercialize our product candidates, our ability to use and expand our technology platforms to build a pipeline of product candidates, our dependence on our lead product candidate, CRS-207, and GVAX Pancreas, our ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval of our product candidates, our inability to operate in a competitive industry and compete successfully against competitors that have greater resources than we do, our reliance on third parties, and our ability to obtain and adequately protect intellectual property rights for our product candidates. We discuss many of these risks in greater detail under the heading "Risk Factors" contained in the most recent Form 10-Q which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and our actual results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and the development of the industry in which we operate, may differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Any forward-looking statements that we make in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release. We assume no obligation to update our forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date of this press release.