Appointment of Non-Executive Director

RNS Number : 1299R

Shield Therapeutics PLC

26 June 2020

 

Shield Therapeutics plc

("Shield" or the "Group" or the "Company")

Appointment of Non-Executive Director

London, UK, 26 June 2020:  Shield Therapeutics plc (LSE: STX), a commercial stage, pharmaceutical company with a focus on addressing iron deficiency with its lead product Feraccru ® /Accrufer ^® (ferric maltol), announces the appointment of Dr. Christian Schweiger as a Non-Executive Director of the Company with immediate effect.

Dr. Schweiger was a co-founder of Shield in 2008 and was more recently employed by the Company between March 2016 and April 2017 in a senior medical science capacity.  Dr Schweiger is an entrepreneurial senior medical affairs and clinical development executive with substantial experience working with both large and small pharmaceutical companies.  Dr Schweiger is also Lecturing Professor in Pharmaceutical Medicine at the University of Essen and actively working with different international patient and professional associations.

Dr. Schweiger currently owns 4,114,300 ordinary shares of 1.5p each in the Company representing 3.5% of the Company's issued share capital, and therefore is not considered to be independent.

Hans Peter Hasler, Chairman of Shield Therapeutics, said: "I am delighted that Christian has agreed to join the board of Shield bringing his previous knowledge of the Company and Feraccru, and also his extensive experience in medical affairs and clinical development."

Additional information

The following information is disclosed in accordance with Schedule 2(g) of the AIM Rules for Companies.

Full name: Dr. Christian Schweiger

Age: 53 years

Current directorships: ARXX Therapeutics, TACHRIS AG

Previous directorships held in the past 5 years: None

For further information please contact:

Shield Therapeutics plc	www.shieldtherapeutics.com
Tim Watts, CEO	[phone]
Karen Chandler Smith, Investor Relations
Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker
Peel Hunt LLP
James Steel/Dr Christopher Golden	[phone]
Joint Broker finnCap Ltd  Geoff Nash/Matt Radley/Alice Lane	[phone]
Financial PR & IR Advisor
Walbrook PR	[phone] or  [e-mail]
Paul McManus/Lianne Cawthorne	[phone] / [phone]

About Shield Therapeutics plc

Shield is a de-risked, commercial stage, specialty pharmaceutical company delivering innovative pharmaceuticals to address patients' unmet medical needs.  The Company's clear purpose is to develop products that help patients become people again, enabling them to enjoy the things that make a difference in their everyday lives. The Group's lead product, Feraccru®/ Accrufer® has exclusive IP rights until the mid-2030s and is approved for the treatment of iron deficiency with or without anaemia in adults in the European Union, the United States and Switzerland.  In Europe it is marketed as Feraccru® with commercialisation led by Norgine BV and in the USA the product will be marketed as Accrufer® with Shield currently in the process of selecting a commercialisation partner.  Shield also has an exclusive licence agreement with Beijing Aosaikang Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd for the development and commercialisation of Feraccru®/Accrufer® in China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.  For more information please visit www.shieldtherapeutics.com

About Feraccru®/Accrufer®

Feraccru ® /Accrufer®  is a novel, stable, non-salt based oral therapy for adults with iron deficiency with or without anaemia that has been shown to be an efficacious and well-tolerated therapy in a range of controlled phase 3 trials, and offers a compelling alternative to IV iron for those patients unable to tolerate salt-based oral iron therapies and wish to avoid the complexities of infusion-based iron therapies.

When salt-based oral iron therapies are ingested they can cause a range of mild-to-severe gastrointestinal tract (GI) adverse events, including nausea, bloating and constipation through the release and subsequent reactivity of free iron in the GI tract, leading to poor tolerability, reduced patient compliance and ultimately treatment failure.  Feraccru®/Accrufer® is not an iron saltand, as a result, it does not routinely cause the same treatment-limiting intolerance issues of salt-based iron therapies, whilst the iron from the ferric maltol molecule can be readily absorbed.

Prior to  Feraccru ® /Accrufer® , IV iron therapies were the only realistic alternative treatment option for iron deficient patients with or without anaemia intolerant of or unwilling to be treated salt-based oral iron therapies.  However, use of such an invasive, costly, inconvenient and complex to administer treatment option, which is associated with potentially life-threatening and spontaneous hypersensitivity reactions, means there remains a clear unmet medical need for these patients to have access to an effective therapy that is well tolerated, convenient and does not require hospital-based administration.  Feraccru®/Accrufer® meets those requirements.

About Iron Deficiency

The WHO states that iron deficiency is the most common and widespread nutritional disorder in the world.  As well as affecting a large number of women and children in non-industrialized countries, it is the only nutrient deficiency which is also significantly prevalent in virtually all industrialised nations.  There are no current global figures for iron deficiency but, using anaemia as an indirect indicator, it can be estimated that most preschool children and pregnant women in non-industrialised countries, together with at least 30-40% in industrialized countries, are iron deficient.

 

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