Axovant Appoints David Nassif as Chief Financial Officer and Expands Board of Directors

-David Nassif joins executive management team as CFO, effective July 1, 2019-

-Senthil Sundaram to join Axovant’s Board of Directors-

BASEL, Switzerland, July 01, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Axovant Gene Therapies Ltd. (NASDAQ: AXGT), a clinical-stage company developing innovative gene therapies, today announced the appointment of David Nassif as Chief Financial Officer, effective July 1, 2019. In addition, Axovant announced the expansion of its Board of Directors with the addition of Mr. Senthil Sundaram.

“Since the inception of Axovant Gene Therapies, we have been focused on building an industry leading team to develop and commercialize gene therapies,” said Dr. Pavan Cheruvu, Chief Executive Officer of Axovant. “We are thrilled to welcome David as CFO and believe his diverse experience in the biopharmaceutical sector across both development and commercial stage companies ideally complements and strengthens our management team. We are also pleased to have Senthil join our board, as he brings important industry perspectives with an impressive career in corporate finance and strategy, most recently in his role at Nightstar through its acquisition by Biogen. Together, these additions support the rapid development of our clinical gene therapies to transform the lives of patients and their families.”

Mr. Nassif has more than 25 years of life sciences industry experience in executive financial management roles in development-stage, commercial-stage, public and private companies. Prior to joining Axovant, Mr. Nassif was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of SteadyMed Therapeutics, where he was instrumental in its acquisition by United Therapeutics in August 2018. From 2011 to 2014, Mr. Nassif served as the President and Chief Financial Officer of Histogen. Previously, he was Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Zogenix and held several key roles at Amphastar Pharmaceuticals and RealAge Inc. Earlier in his career, Mr. Nassif held various positions with Cypros Pharmaceuticals, where he was instrumental in leading its merger with Ribogene, Inc. to form Questcor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He holds a B.S. in Finance and Management Information Systems with honors from the University of Virginia and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law.

Mr. Sundaram was most recently the Chief Financial Officer at Nightstar Therapeutics, until its acquisition by Biogen in June 2019. While at Nightstar, he was responsible for corporate finance and operations, business development, and strategy. He helped lead the execution of multiple equity offerings, as well as licensing and M&A transactions. Prior to joining Nightstar, Mr. Sundaram was the Vice President and Head of Business and Corporate Development at Intercept Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Previously, Mr. Sundaram spent 13 years in the healthcare investment banking groups at Lehman Brothers/Barclays, Citigroup and Lazard. Mr. Sundaram holds a B.S. in Computer Engineering and a B.A. in Economics from Brown University.

About Axovant Gene Therapies

Axovant, part of the Roivant family of companies, is a clinical-stage gene therapy company focused on developing a pipeline of innovative product candidates for debilitating neurological diseases. Our current pipeline of gene therapy candidates targets Parkinson’s disease, GM1 gangliosidosis and GM2 gangliosidosis (including Tay-Sachs disease and Sandhoff disease). Axovant is focused on accelerating product candidates into and through clinical trials with a team of experts in gene therapy development and through external partnerships with leading gene therapy organizations. For more information, visit .

About Roivant

Roivant Sciences aims to improve health by rapidly delivering innovative medicines and technologies to patients. It does this by building Vants – nimble, entrepreneurial biotech and healthcare technology companies with a unique approach to sourcing talent, aligning incentives, and deploying technology to drive greater efficiency in R&D and commercialization. For more information, please visit

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