Tessa Therapeutics Appoints David McIntyre as Chief Financial Officer

BEDMINSTER, N.J. and SINGAPORE, Dec. 17, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Tessa Therapeutics (Tessa), a clinical-stage cell therapy company developing next-generation cancer treatments, today announced the appointment of David McIntyre as its Chief Financial Officer.

Mr. McIntyre brings over 25 years of global financial, operational and legal experience, including over 10 years as Chief Financial Officer of various publicly listed and privately held entities. He joins Tessa from AVITA Medical, Inc. (ASX: AVH, NASDAQ: RCEL), where he served as the Chief Financial Officer.

Before joining AVITA Medical, Mr. McIntyre served as a Partner with Apple Tree Partners (ATP), a multibillion-dollar life science venture capital and growth equity fund. At ATP Mr. McIntyre was responsible for ATP's medical device portfolio, together with various operating and Board functions, including acting as CFO and Head of Technical Operations at Braeburn, Inc.

"I am pleased to welcome David to Tessa's leadership team," said Jeffrey H. Buchalter, President and CEO of Tessa Therapeutics. "His successful experience as a senior executive for both private and public listed companies, and also as a life sciences venture capital firm partner makes him an ideal addition to our leadership team at this pivotal time in Tessa's journey."

Prior to ATP, Mr. McIntyre was CFO and COO at HeartWare International, Inc. (previously ASX: HIN; NASDAQ: HTWR) during its transition from pre-clinical stage to commercialization across more than 20 countries. Prior to entering life sciences, Mr McIntyre practiced as a senior attorney at Baker & McKenzie and KPMG specializing in corporate law and held various senior finance roles in multi-national companies.

"The recently published data of Tessa's Autologous therapy is very impressive, and Tessa's novel Allogeneic platform shows potential to develop transformative cancer cell therapies," said Mr. Mclntyre. "I am delighted to join Tessa and I look forward to contributing towards bringing these therapies to patients."

Mr. McIntyre holds a Bachelor of Economics (Accounting) from the University of Sydney (Australia), a Bachelor of Law from the University of Technology, Sydney (Australia) and a Master of Business Administration (Fuqua Scholar) from Duke University. He is also a Certified Practicing Accountant (CPA) and is admitted as a Legal Practitioner of the Supreme Court of New South Wales (in Australia).

About Tessa Therapeutics

Tessa Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a portfolio of next-generation cell therapies for cancer. It has a pipeline of therapies in clinical development for the treatment of hematological malignancies and solid tumors.

Tessa's lead autologous therapy is in late-stage clinical development for treatment of lymphomas. It has shown strong clinical responses in patients with relapsed/refractory classical Hodgkin Lymphoma, based on which it was granted the RMAT designation by the U.S. FDA and the PRIME designation by the EMA.

Tessa is also developing a novel, differentiated, allogeneic "off-the shelf" cell therapy platform, to create more efficacious, reliable, and scalable therapies capable of targeting a broad range of cancers. A therapy using this platform is being evaluated in an ongoing clinical trial in United States.

Tessa has its global headquarters in Singapore, where it is also building its own state-of-the-art, commercial manufacturing facility. Tessa is currently setting up its United States headquarters in New Jersey.

For more information on Tessa, please visit www.tessatherapeutics.com.