Zymeworks Announces the Addition of Dr. Leonard Presta to its Scientific Advisory Board

VANCOUVER, British Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Zymeworks Inc., a privately held biotherapeutics company focused on the development of best-in-class antibody and next generation protein-based therapeutics, today announced the addition of Dr. Leonard Presta to its Scientific Advisory Board.

"The addition of Len to our Scientific Advisory Board comes at a exciting time for Zymeworks as we are accelerating our lead candidates through a series of in vivo studies towards the clinic," says Dr. Ali Tehrani, President and CEO of Zymeworks. "Len's prior familiarity with the Azymetric™ platform, together with his unrivaled track record in the development of therapeutic antibodies, is a great fit with Zymeworks. We are extremely excited to be able to tap into his wealth of antibody engineering and drug development expertise as we progress our oncology programs forward."

Dr. Leonard Presta, with more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology industry, is one of the most internationally respected scientists in the fields of antibody and protein engineering. Most recently, Len served as a Distinguished Fellow at Merck & Co., Inc. where he was responsible for the protein engineering of all internal therapeutic antibodies. Len also held positions of increasing responsibility at Genentech, Inc., including Director of the Antibody Technology Group where he was directly responsible for or led the protein engineering of notable antibody therapeutics including Herceptin®, Perjeta® Raptiva®, Xolair®, Avastin®, and Lucentis®. Len is an inventor on more than 130 U.S. patents and has served on the editorial boards of notable journals including the Journal of Biological Chemistry, PROTEINS, and MABS. Len received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Texas A&M University in the computational modeling of protein-ligand interactions.

About Zymeworks Inc.

Zymeworks is a privately held biotechnology company that is developing best-in-class antibody therapeutics for the treatment of oncology, autoimmunity and inflammatory diseases. The company's proprietary ZymeCAD™ structure-guided protein engineering technology and its novel Azymetric™ and AlbuCORE™ platforms enable the development of highly potent bi-specific antibodies and multivalent protein therapeutics targeted across a range of indications. Zymeworks is focused on growing its preclinical biotherapeutics pipeline through in-house research and development programs and strategic collaborations. More information on Zymeworks can be found at www.zymeworks.com.

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