Clearside Biomedical Appoints Dr. George Lasezkay as President and Chief Executive Officer

ALPHARETTA, Ga., March 11, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Clearside Biomedical, Inc. (Nasdaq:CLSD), a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and delivering treatments that restore and preserve vision for people with serious back of the eye diseases, announced today that George Lasezkay, Pharm.D., J.D., has been appointed President and Chief Executive Officer. He will continue to serve on the Board of Directors. This appointment was effective March 1, 2020.

William Humphries, Chairman of the Clearside Board of Directors, said, “Clearside has made meaningful progress during George’s tenure as Interim CEO. We are very pleased that he has agreed to take the position of President and CEO, given his proven ability to focus and lead the organization in a complex environment. In less than one year, we have concluded preclinical studies to advance CLS-AX (axitinib injectable suspension) into the clinic and have added multiple partnerships for our suprachoroidal space injection platform, including two key licensing agreements for the commercialization of our late stage asset, XIPERE™ (triamcinolone acetonide suprachoroidal injectable suspension). These accomplishments provide strong momentum for Clearside as we build on the value of our proprietary suprachoroidal injection platform.”

“I am excited about having the opportunity to continue working closely with the Clearside team and I am grateful to the Board for their confidence and support,” said George Lasezkay, Pharm.D., J.D., President and CEO, Clearside Biomedical. “We are well underway in executing our two-pronged strategy of building an internal research and development pipeline in areas such as novel small molecules and gene therapy, as well as creating external collaborations with other companies to enable them to deliver therapies in a targeted, repeatable, non-surgical manner via the suprachoroidal space. I look forward to continued interactions with the medical and investor communities.”

About George Lasezkay, Pharm.D., J.D.

Dr. Lasezkay has an accomplished history of success in the life sciences industry. For the past 15 years, he has served as an independent director on the boards of a number of domestic and foreign emerging biopharmaceutical companies, including serving as a director of Clearside since August 2017. Beginning in April 2019, Dr. Lasezkay served as the Company’s Interim CEO.

Previously, Dr. Lasezkay served as Executive Vice President and General Counsel at Acucela Inc., a development stage company that specializes in identifying and developing novel ophthalmic therapeutics. For the 10 years prior to joining Acucela, he was President of Horizon Pharma Group, a private life sciences consultancy practice. Prior to Horizon, Dr. Lasezkay was Corporate Vice President for Corporate Development at Allergan, Inc., the global pharmaceutical and medical aesthetics company. His 13 years of progressive experience at Allergan involved a number of executive leadership positions, including being a member of the company’s Executive Committee, Assistant General Counsel for Commercial Affairs, and General Counsel for the Asia-Pacific Region.

Dr. Lasezkay has played a critical role in developing corporate strategy and has been responsible for a wide variety of licensing, research and development collaboration and acquisition transactions involving new technologies, products and companies. He also has a multi-disciplinary background in private firm and in-house legal practice, hospital pharmacy practice, clinical pharmacokinetics consultation and clinical drug research.

Dr. Lasezkay earned his B.S. Pharmacy and Doctor of Pharmacy degrees from the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Pharmacy, and a J.D. degree from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

About Clearside Biomedical

Clearside Biomedical, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing and delivering treatments that restore and preserve vision for people with serious back of the eye diseases. Clearside’s proprietary SCS Microinjector™ targeting the suprachoroidal space (SCS^®) offers unique access to the macula, retina and choroid where sight-threatening disease often occurs. The Company’s SCS injection platform is an inherently flexible, in-office, non-surgical procedure, intended to provide targeted delivery to the site of disease and to work with both established and new formulations of medications, as well as future therapeutic innovations such as gene therapy. For more information, please visit .

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements may be identified by words such as “believe”, “expect”, “may”, “plan”, “potential”, “will”, and similar expressions, and are based on Clearside’s current beliefs and expectations. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding the potential of the suprachoroidal injection platform. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in such statements. Risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially include uncertainties inherent in the conduct of clinical trials, Clearside’s reliance on third parties over which it may not always have full control, and other risks and uncertainties that are described in Clearside’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) on March 15, 2019, Clearside’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2019, filed with the SEC on November 6, 2019, and Clearside’s other Periodic Reports filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and are based on information available to Clearside as of the date of this release, and Clearside assumes no obligation to, and does not intend to, update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

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Source: Clearside Biomedical, Inc.