TRACON Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ:TCON) has announced the appointment of Ya Huang as executive director of Statistical Programming.
The company noted that Huang brings more than two decades of broad statistical programming experience to TRACON, including most recently as a senior director at Arena Pharmaceuticals, and past roles at Halozyme Therapeutics, Gilead, and Amylin Pharmaceuticals.
READ: TRACON Pharmaceuticals announces orphan drug designation for envafolimab in soft tissue sarcoma
“As we remain focused on preparing for the expected BLA filing for envafolimab in sarcoma, it is critical that we continue to expand our senior statistical data team,” said Dr Charles Theuer, president and CEO of TRACON in a statement.
“We are excited to have someone as highly experienced as Mr Huang in this critical area lead our statistical programming activities," he added.
In connection with his appointment, the company said Huang was issued an inducement award consisting of an option to purchase an aggregate of 37,000 shares of the company's common stock. The option has an exercise price per share equal to $6.94, which was the closing price of TRACON’s common stock on the Nasdaq Capital Market on the date of grant.
The option vests over four years, with 25% of the option shares vesting on the first anniversary of the date of grant and the remaining 75% of the option shares vesting in monthly installments over the three years thereafter. The option has a 10-year term, and is subject to the terms and conditions of TRACON's 2015 Plan and applicable stock option agreement.
In important news released on June 29, TRACON had announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation to envafolimab, a novel, single-domain antibody against PD-L1.
Envafolimab is the first subcutaneously injected PD-L1 inhibitor to be studied in pivotal trials. The antibody gained orphan drug status from the FDA following TRACON's submission of an amended application that included Phase 1 clinical trial data from sarcoma patients treated with single-agent envafolimab.
Clinical trial data were submitted in response to an FDA request to provide data using envafolimab to treat patients with soft tissue sarcoma that demonstrated a therapeutic effect, the company added.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com