Janux Therapeutics Appoints Vickie Capps and Dr. Sheila Gujrathi to Board of Directors

SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Janux Therapeutics today announced the appointment of Vickie Capps and Sheila Gujrathi, M.D., as independent members of the Company’s Board of Directors. Ms. Capps is an experienced senior finance and audit professional with a depth of expertise in strategic business development and corporate governance. Dr. Gujrathi is a seasoned pharmaceutical executive who has successfully founded and built biotech companies and led the advancement and approval of multiple novel biologic and small molecule therapeutics within leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies.

“The Board and I are extremely pleased to have Vickie and Sheila joining us as independent directors, and both of their unique skill sets will serve Janux well as we transition to being a clinical-stage company,” said David Campbell, Ph.D., President and CEO of Janux Therapeutics. “Sheila has deep experience and expertise in leading and operating biotech companies and successfully developing innovative drug candidates in immunology and oncology, and Vickie’s distinguished career in finance and management will be critical as Janux accelerates the corporate development of the Company.”

Ms. Capps is a member of the Boards of Directors and the audit committee chair of each of the following public healthcare companies: NuVasive Otonomy, Silverback Therapeutics, Inc. and Amedisys Ms. Capps is also a member of the Board of Directors of the San Diego State University Research Foundation and a member of the Senior Advisory Board of Consonance Capital Partners, a healthcare investment firm. She previously served as a member of the Boards of Directors of several other public and private companies, most recently, Synthorx and Enclara Pharmacia. Ms. Capps began her career as an accounting and audit professional at Ernst & Young, followed by chief financial officer roles at several public and private companies. Most recently she was the chief financial officer of DJO Global, Inc., a medical device company, from 2002 to 2013. Ms. Capps is a Certified Public Accountant, and she received her B.S. in business administration and accounting from San Diego State University.

Dr. Gujrathi is the co-founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Gossamer Bio, Inc., which is discovering and developing a clinical and research pipeline of novel therapeutics for immunology, inflammation, and oncology. She serves as the Chair of the Board of Directors of Turning Point Therapeutics, Inc. and ADARx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.. She previously served on the Board of Directors at Five Prime Therapeutics,  and Ambrx. Prior to Gossamer Bio, Dr. Gujrathi served as Chief Medical Officer of Receptos. At Receptos, she built the development, regulatory and quality organizations and advanced the pipeline of drug candidates, including Zeposia, which is approved in multiple sclerosis and under Priority Review for ulcerative colitis. Prior to Receptos, Dr. Gujrathi was Vice President of the Global Clinical Development Group in Immunology at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where she led late-stage clinical development and supported numerous global regulatory filings and approvals for Orencia and Nulojix. She was also responsible for development of other assets in the BMS immunology clinical pipeline and advised the strategies for discovery, early development, and external business development within the immunoscience franchise. Prior to BMS, Dr. Gujrathi held roles in the immunology, tissue growth and repair clinical development groups at Genentech where she worked on Ocrevus, Rituxan, Xolair, and a number of other programs across all stages of development and served as the Avastin franchise team leader. Earlier in her career, she was a management consultant in McKinsey & Company’s healthcare practice. Dr. Gujrathi received both her M.D. in the accelerated Honors Program in Medical Education and her B.S. in biomedical engineering with highest distinction from Northwestern University. She completed her internal medicine internship and residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School and additional fellowship training in allergy/immunology at UCSF and Stanford.

About T Cell Engagers and Janux’s TRACTr Technology

T cell engagers are an emerging class of immunotherapies that bind to a tumor cell and recruit a patient’s T cells to eradicate tumor cells. Although previous therapies utilizing other technologies have displayed substantial anti-tumor efficacy, they have been constrained by dose-limiting toxicities, poor pharmacokinetic profiles, and attenuated efficacy. Janux’s TRACTr technology is designed to overcome these limitations by integrating tumor-specific activation with crossover pharmacokinetics to produce differentiated T cell engager therapeutics. In preclinical studies, Janux TRACTr drug candidates have demonstrated substantial activity, but have not displayed the associated liabilities related to cytokine release, healthy tissue toxicities, or systemic immune activation.

About Janux Therapeutics

Janux Therapeutics is developing novel immunotherapies with the company’s proprietary TRACTr technology. Janux’s TRACTr technology employs a modular design to rapidly engineer drug candidates against specific targets and can be applied to immunotherapies that target all three stages of an anti-tumor immune response. Combining Janux’s tumor-specific activation with multi-stage anti-tumor signaling has the potential to significantly improve safety, expand the therapeutic dosing window, and maximize patient responses. The Janux TRACTr development pipeline targets multiple solid tumor indications, including colorectal, gastroesophageal, prostrate, NSCLC, triple negative breast, and ovarian cancers. For more information, visit www.januxrx.com.

Contacts