Conatus Pharmaceuticals Promotes Daniel L. Ripley

SAN DIEGO , Feb. 02, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq: CNAT ) announced today the promotion of Daniel L. Ripley to Senior Vice President, Business Development, Program and Alliance Management, effective immediately. Mr. Ripley will continue to lead licensing and partnering initiatives and act as the internal coordinator of the emricasan development strategy, and will take on additional responsibilities as the company’s primary liaison with Novartis under the recently announced option, collaboration and license agreement.

“Dan has driven the emricasan out-licensing effort from the initial outreach and discussions with multiple potential partners, through the reciprocal due diligence and negotiations leading to the successful execution of the Novartis agreement,” said Steven J. Mento, Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Conatus. “We expect his continued involvement to be instrumental in maintaining the collaborative relationship with Novartis as we advance through development, regulatory approvals and commercialization of our first-in-class, orally active pan-caspase inhibitor emricasan. We also expect his broad experience in both in-licensing and out-licensing of commercial products as well as in partnering early-to-late stage products to be valuable in identifying and securing additional pipeline opportunities.”

Daniel Ripley Daniel L. Ripley has served since October 2014 as Vice President, Business Development and Program Management, at Conatus, and joined the company in July 2012 as Senior Director, Head of Corporate Development. Mr. Ripley has 20 years of integrated business development experience in the initiation and execution of strategic business transactions in emerging growth life science companies. He has led licensing, commercial analysis, partnering initiatives, and intellectual property enforcement to drive business development of early-to-late stage products in a wide variety of therapeutic areas and technologies. Mr. Ripley served as Senior Director of Business Development at Apricus Biosciences from 2011 through 2012, and prior to that was a senior business development consultant to biotechnology companies in the San Diego area from 2010 through 2011, Vice President of Business Development at BioBlocks, Inc. from 2009 through 2010, Senior Director, Head of Business Development at Kalypsys, Inc. from 2006 through 2008, Director of Business Development at Isis Pharmaceuticals from 2000 through 2006, and Director of Business Development at The Immune Response Corporation, Inc., from 1997 to 2000. During this timeframe, he executed multiple licensing and drug discovery collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that included Pfizer, Oncogenex, Alnylam, Amgen, GSK, Sanofi, and Alcon. Mr. Ripley holds an M.B.A. with an emphasis in Finance and a B.S. in Microbiology, both from San Diego State University.

About Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. Conatus is a biotechnology company focused on the development and commercialization of novel medicines to treat liver disease. Conatus is developing its lead compound, emricasan, for the treatment of patients with chronic liver disease. Emricasan is designed to reduce the activity of enzymes that mediate inflammation and apoptosis. Conatus believes that by reducing the activity of these enzymes, emricasan has the potential to interrupt the disease progression across the spectrum of liver disease. For additional information, please visit www.conatuspharma.com .

Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release are forward-looking statements, including statements regarding emricasan’s potential to interrupt the disease progression across the spectrum of liver disease. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “could,” “intend,” “target,” “project,” “contemplates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential” or “continue” or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this press release and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those risks described in the company’s prior press releases and in the periodic reports it files with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The events and circumstances reflected in the company’s forward-looking statements may not be achieved or occur and actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Except as required by applicable law, the company does not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of any new information, future events, changed circumstances or otherwise.

MEDIA: David Schull Russo Partners, LLC (858) 717-2310 David.Schull@RussoPartnersLLC.com INVESTORS: Alan Engbring Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (858) 376-2637 aengbring@conatuspharma.com