Voyager Therapeutics Elects Wendy Dixon, Ph.D. and

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 05, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Voyager Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: VYGR ), a clinical-stage gene therapy company developing life-changing treatments for severe diseases of the central nervous system (CNS), today announced the appointments of Wendy L. Dixon, Ph.D., and Glenn F. Pierce, M.D., Ph.D., to the Company’s Board of Directors.

“Wendy and Glenn are industry veterans who bring deep and relevant development and commercialization expertise to our Board and to the Company,” said Steven Paul, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Voyager Therapeutics.  “Their insight will be valuable to Voyager as we advance our lead clinical program for advanced Parkinson’s disease and progress our multiple gene therapy pipeline programs towards the clinic during the next 12 to 18 months.”

About Wendy L. Dixon, Ph.D.

Dr. Dixon brings over 35 years of global biopharmaceutical leadership experience where, as a senior executive, she combined her technical and commercial background to direct the development, launch and growth of over 20 new pharmaceutical products, including many highly successful multi-billion dollar global brands across multiple therapeutic areas including oncology, virology, immunology and neurology.  Most recently, Dr. Dixon was a senior advisor to The Monitor Group, now Monitor Deloitte, a global consulting firm.  From 2001 to 2009, she served as Chief Marketing Officer and President, Global Marketing for Bristol-Myers Squibb where she served on the Executive Committee. From 1996 to 2001, she was Senior Vice President, Marketing at Merck & Co. with prior executive management positions at West Pharmaceuticals, Osteotech, and Centocor and various positions at SmithKline & French Pharmaceuticals (now GlaxoSmithKline) in marketing, regulatory affairs, project management and as a biochemist.  Dr. Dixon currently serves on the Board of Directors of Alkermes, bluebird bio, Eleven Biotherapeutics, and Incyte Corporation, and was formerly on the Board of Dentsply International, Orexigen Therapeutics, Edimer Pharmaceuticals, Furiex Pharmaceuticals (sold to Actavis plc in 2014) and Ardea Biosciences, Inc. (sold to AstraZeneca plc in 2012).  Dr. Dixon received her B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, England, U.K.

“This is an exciting time for Voyager with the recent positive interim results from the Phase 1b trial of VY-AADC01 for advanced Parkinson’s disease and the planned pipeline activities during 2017 and beyond and I am thrilled to serve on this Board,” said Dr. Dixon.  “Voyager has taken a thoughtful approach towards creating and selecting its gene therapy candidates, engineering and optimizing vectors, establishing routes of administration, manufacturing at scale and with quality, and surrounding itself with a world-class team to advance these programs closer to the clinic.”

About Glenn Pierce, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Pierce serves as entrepreneur-in-residence at Third Rock Ventures, having joined the company in 2016 after more than 30 years of research and development experience working with biotechnology companies. Glenn retired from Biogen in 2014 where he most recently served as Chief Medical Officer leading the hematology, cell and gene therapies division. At Biogen, Glenn spearheaded the initiation of the Humanitarian Aid Collaboration with the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH), and My Life Our Future, a population-wide genotyping and genomic biobank initiative. Prior to Biogen, Glenn served in small, large, public and private biotech/biopharma firms, including Bayer, Inspiration, Avigen, Selective Genetics and Amgen in the areas of tissue regeneration and hematology.  He is the co-author of more than 150 scientific papers and received over 15 patents.  He served on the Medical and Scientific Advisory Council, the Board of Directors and was president of the board of the National Hemophilia Foundation during a span of two decades.  Glenn also served on the Blood Products Advisory Committee at the FDA and the Committee on Blood Safety and Availability at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  He currently serves on the WFH and Global Blood Therapeutics Board of Directors.  Glenn received an M.D. and a Ph.D. in immunology, both from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and completed his postgraduate training in pathology and hematology research at Washington University in St. Louis.

“I have followed Parkinson’s disease gene therapy initiatives since their inception more than 10 years ago at Avigen and am enthusiastic about the progress made in this challenging therapeutic area by the team at Voyager and their clinical collaborators,” said Glenn Pierce, M.D., Ph.D.  “I look forward to serving on the Voyager Board in furthering progress treating neurodegenerative diseases.”

About Voyager Therapeutics

Voyager Therapeutics is a clinical-stage gene therapy company developing life-changing treatments for severe diseases of the CNS.  Voyager is committed to advancing the field of adeno-associated virus (AAV) gene therapy through innovation and investment in vector engineering and optimization, manufacturing and dosing and delivery techniques.  The Company’s pipeline focuses on severe CNS diseases in need of effective new therapies, including advanced Parkinson’s disease, a monogenic form of ALS, Friedreich’s ataxia, Huntington’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and severe, chronic pain.  Voyager has broad strategic collaborations with Sanofi Genzyme, the specialty care global business unit of Sanofi, and the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  Founded by scientific and clinical leaders in the fields of AAV gene therapy, expressed RNA interference and neuroscience, Voyager Therapeutics is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  For more information, please visit www.voyagertherapeutics.com .  Follow Voyager on LinkedIn.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements for the purposes of the safe harbor provisions under The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities law. The use of words such as “may,” “might,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “project,” “intend,” “future,” “potential,” or “continue,” and other similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements.  For example, all statements Voyager makes regarding the initiation, timing, progress and reporting of results of its preclinical programs and clinical trials and its research and development programs, its ability to advance its AAV-based gene therapies into, and successfully complete, clinical trials, its ability to continue to develop its product engine, its ability to add new programs to its pipeline, its expected cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities at the end of a fiscal year and anticipation for how long expected cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities will last, and the timing or likelihood of its regulatory filings and approvals, are forward looking.  All forward-looking statements are based on estimates and assumptions by Voyager’s management that, although Voyager believes to be reasonable, are inherently uncertain.  All forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those that Voyager expected.  These statements are also subject to a number of material risks and uncertainties that are described in Voyager’s most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as updated by its future filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it was made.  Voyager undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.