Dr. Fahar Merchant reports

MEDICENNA STRENGTHENS BOARD OF DIRECTORS WITH APPOINTMENT OF KARIM LALJI

Medicenna Therapeutics Corp. has appointed Karim Lalji as a new addition to its board of directors effective as of Aug. 14, 2024.

"We are thrilled to announce the appointment of Mr. Karim Lalji as a new member to our board of directors," said Dr. Fahar Merchant, president and chief executive officer of Medicenna. "With a distinguished career spanning the life sciences sector, Mr. Lalji brings to our board of directors his exceptional transactional expertise, strategic vision and a solid track record of big-pharma partnerships that will be invaluable to Medicenna as it builds its superkine platform and pipeline of promising best and first-in-class clinical assets."

Mr. Lalji added: "I'm honoured and excited to join Medicenna's board of directors. The recent data from the phase 1/2 Ability-1 study highlights the best-in-class potential of MDNA11 in treating advanced solid tumours. Combined with the compelling phase 2b results for bizaxofusp in brain cancer, a versatile superkine platform and a highly capable management team, Medicenna is well positioned for continued success in advancing its immune-based therapies for cancer and other diseases by ingeniously modulating the immune system."

Mr. Lalji began his career with Merck & Company at its world headquarters in New Jersey. During his 10-year tenure at Merck, he held several positions of increasing responsibilities, eventually driving global strategies for several of the company's therapeutic franchises, including the global executive leading the osteoporosis franchise and growing annual sales of its lead program to over $1-billion. Subsequent to Merck, Mr. Lalji was vice-president of business strategy and new product commercialization at Sepracor Inc., significantly contributing to the company's growth from $50-million to over $1-billion in annual sales. In 2006, Mr. Lalji joined Cardiome Pharma Corp. as chief commercial officer, facilitating a $1-billion licensing transaction with Merck, the largest licensing deal completed by a Canadian biopharma company at that time.

Mr. Lalji joins Medicenna's board of directors with broad governance experience, having served as chairman of the board for the oncology-focused Sitka Biopharma, and as board member of AccelRX and the Centre for Drug Research and Development (now known as adMare BioInnovations). Additionally, he served on the board of overseers of Harvard University's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a leading academic teaching hospital, where he continues as a board member emeritus and is a member of its research oversight committee. Currently, Mr. Lalji is the CEO of Microbion Pharma Corp., a privately held clinical-stage pharmaceutical company. Mr. Lalji holds a BBA from Simon Fraser University and a science master's degree in health policy and management from Harvard University, where he was awarded the Wilinsky Award for Academic Excellence.

About Medicenna Therapeutics Corp.

Medicenna is a clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on developing novel, highly selective versions of IL-2, IL-4 and IL-13 superkines and first-in-class empowered superkines. Medicenna's long-acting IL-2 superkine, MDNA11, is a next-generation IL-2 with superior affinity toward CD122 (IL-2 receptor beta) and no CD25 (IL-2 receptor alpha) binding, thereby preferentially stimulating cancer-killing effector T-cells and NK-cells. Medicenna's IL-4 empowered superkine, bizaxofusp (formerly MDNA55), has been studied in five clinical trials enrolling over 130 patients, including a phase 2b trial for recurrent GBM, the most common and uniformly fatal form of brain cancer. Bizaxofusp has obtained fast-track and orphan drug status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and FDA/EMA (European Medicines Agency), respectively. Medicenna's early-stage BiSkits (bifunctional superkine immunotherapies) and the T-Mask(TM) (targeted metalloprotease activated superkine) programs are designed to enhance the ability of superkines to treat immunologically cold tumours.

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