Neurophth Expands Its Global Gene Therapy Leadership Team with the Appointment of Dr. Zhengbin Li as Head of Commercial

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Aug 19, 2021, 10:00 ET

WUHAN, China and SAN DIEGO, Aug. 19, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Neurophth Biotechnology Ltd., a fully-integrated genomic medicines company committed to the development of AAV-delivered gene therapies for the treatment of ocular diseases, today announced the recent appointment of Dr. Zhengbin (Luke) Li as the Head of Commercial.

In his role, Dr. Li will oversee all aspects of commercial activities, develop the strategic brand and sales/marketing plans, launch readiness of products, implement market access and lead the business development. At Neurophth, he will apply his extensive past experience in growing and scaling businesses that apply gene therapy technology to Ophthalmology to improve the lives of under-served patients.

Dr. Luke Li is a seasoned commercial leader with more than 12 years of proven commercial experience in the healthcare and multi-national pharmaceutical industry, specializing in new product commercialization and brand management experience particularly in ophthalmology. Dr. Li's previous positions include commercial leadership roles at top MNC pharmaceuticals including Bristol-Myers Squibb, Sanofi, Bayer, Novartis etc.. Within Novartis, he was a member of Lucentis best-in-class launch commercial launch team as well as global Ophthalmology brand team. Within Bayer, he led the company's successful launch of Eylea, built the commercial team and oversaw the strategic planning for the Ophthalmology business unit.

Dr. Li received his MBA from Washington University in St. Louis and his Ph.D. from Peking Union Medical College. He completed his postdoctoral research trainings at the Washington University School of Medicine in Neuropharmacology and at the Yale University School of Medicine in Neurobiology.

Founder and Chairman of Neurophth Prof. Bin Li said: "Luke's strong track record of successfully launching Eylea and in-depth experience in Ophthalmology, coupled with his academic background in Biology and clinical medicine, makes him an ideal candidate to lead our growing commercial and business development teams and infrastructure. With the anticipated first AAV gene therapy product in Ophthalmology launch in China and plans for international commercialization and growth, I'm confident he will play a critical role in shaping and achieving Neurophth's global growth strategy."

"Neurophth has set the stage for commercial success with well-defined growth strategies and a solid pipeline in rare and common ophthalmic diseases. Luke's appointment as the Head of Commercial comes at a key inflection point for Neurophth as the company evolves into a fully integrated, commercial-stage organization with the potential approval and launch of NR082 in and outside of China, bringing the ideal of the company 'in China, for Global' closer to reality." said Dr. Alvin Luk, Chief Executive Officer of Neurophth.

"I am delighted to be part of Neurophth at this exciting juncture of the company. The team at Neurophth share a commitment to transforming medicine and helping blind patients by using technology to supplement correct genetic information to reverse the vision loss," said Luke Li, Head of Commercial at Neurophth. "AAV in-vivo gene therapy platform approach continues to demonstrate great promise in treating ophthalmic diseases that have been already proven in the U.S. I'm deeply passionate about scaling the use of novel technologies to improve the lives of patients and look forward to joining the team to build a global and sustainable commercial organization to drive the field of gene therapy forward as well as to bringing these potentially curative therapies to patients upon their approval."

About Neurophth

Neurophth is China's first gene therapy company for Ophthalmic diseases. Headquartered in Wuhan with subsidiaries in China (Shanghai and Suzhou) and US (San Diego, California), Neurophth, a fully integrated company, is striving to discover and develop gene therapies for patients suffering from blindness and other eye diseases globally. Our validated AAV platform which has been published in Nature - Scientific Reports, Ophthalmology, and EBioMedicine, has successfully delivered proof-of-concept data with investigational gene therapies in the retina. Our most advanced investigational candidate, NR082 (NFS-01 project, rAAV2-ND4), in development for the treatment of ND4-mediated Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON), has been granted orphan drug designation (ODD) by the U.S. FDA and its IND evaluating NR082 in a Phase 1/2/3 clinical trial has also been approved by the China NMPA in March 2021 with the first patient being dosed in June 2021. The pipeline also includes ND1-mediated LHON, autosomal dominant optic atrophy, optic neuroprotection (e.g., glaucoma), vascular retinopathy (e.g., diabetic macular edema), and five other preclinical candidates. Neurophth has initiated the scaling up in-house manufacturing process in single-use technologies to support future commercial demand at the Suzhou facilities. To learn more about us and our growing pipeline, visit www.neurophth.com.