Virax appoints three new board members

Virax Holdings (ASX:VHL) has appointed three new board members to support its efforts to take its oncology drugs through the clinical trial process in the US.

The company has hired a new non-executive chairman and two new non-executive directors.

Life science and US capital markets veteran Steven Engle has taken the chairman role. Engle has previously served as chairman and CEO of monoclonal antibody therapeutics developer XOMA and on the board of the Biotechnology International Organization (BIO).

Former Chemgenex CFO and COO Dr James Campbell has meanwhile been appointed non-executive director. Campbell also helped create Invion (ASX:IVX) as an executive director and is now a non-executive director of Invion, BioProspect (ASX:BPO) and Patrys (ASX:PAB).

Australian Biotech capital markets expert Steven Yatomi-Clarke has also taken the role of non-executive director. Yatomi-Clarke is currently director of corporate finance at Patersons Securities.

Three former directors - Dr Wayne Millen, Dr Roland Toder and Dr Brendan Kauwe - meanwhile stepped down on Friday to make room for the new appointees.

Commenting on the reshuffle, Engle said the company now has “the right team in place to take Virax forward and grow shareholder value”.

“Following shareholder approval, the company will have two novel technologies targeting cancer pathways of intense interest to big pharma with two clinical trials already recruiting in the US, and further trials to start in 2015. The future indeed looks promising.”

Virax (ASX:VHL) shares were trading unchanged at $0.007 as of around 1 pm on Monday