Immune Design Appoints Sergey Yurasov, M.D., Ph.D. as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development and Chief Medical Officer

SEATTLE and SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Oct. 04, 2016 -- Immune Design (Nasdaq:IMDZ), a clinical-stage immunotherapy company focused on cancer, today announced the appointment of Sergey Yurasov, M.D., Ph.D. as Senior Vice President of Clinical Development and Chief Medical Officer.

“Sergey’s extensive experience and successful track record in immunology and in the various stages of clinical oncology drug development, including registration trials and regulatory submissions and reviews, make him the optimal leader of our medical team,” said Carlos Paya, M.D., Ph.D., President and Chief Executive Officer at Immune Design. “His esteemed career as an immunologist and oncologist spans industry, academia and clinical practice and will bring invaluable expertise and insight to guide the further advancement of our current Phase 2 stage products and our next-generation approaches in the field of cancer immunotherapy.”    

A board-certified, U.S. licensed hematologist/oncologist with more than 20 years of experience in immunology and oncology, Dr. Yurasov joins Immune Design from Clovis Oncology, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President, Clinical Development overseeing all clinical activities for its rociletinib, rucaparib and lucitanib programs, including regulatory approval and launch support for rociletinib and rucaparib.  Prior to Clovis, Dr. Yurasov served as Associate Vice-President, Global Medicine Science, at ImClone Systems, a subsidiary of Eli Lilly & Co. where he led the development of ramucirumab culminating in the FDA submission for second line non-small cell lung cancer indication. He also served at Hoffman-La Roche as Clinical Director of Oncology, Pharma Research and Early Development. Prior to his industry experience, Dr. Yurasov was Assistant Professor of Clinical Investigation at Rockefeller University, where he was the principal investigator for NIH funded translational immunology research, and Clinical Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he was an attending physician.

Dr. Yurasov received his M.D. from the Russian State Medical University and his Ph.D. in medical sciences from the Research Institute for Pediatric Oncology in Moscow, Russia.  He thereafter completed his residency in general pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Jacobi Medical Center and his subspecialty training in pediatric hematology/oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center while serving as a research fellow at The Rockefeller University in Dr. M. Nussenzweig’s laboratory.

"Immune Design’s immunotherapy approaches offer a promising approach to address the shortcomings of existing therapies, either alone or in combination with other agents," said Dr. Yurasov. "It is rewarding to be involved in such innovative science at the forefront of cancer research. I am pleased to join this distinguished team and look forward to help guide the development of these innovative product candidates."

About Immune Design

Immune Design is a clinical-stage immunotherapy company employing next-generation in vivo approaches to enable the body's immune system to fight disease. The company's technologies are engineered to activate the immune system's natural ability to generate and/or expand antigen-specific cytotoxic T cells, while also enhancing other immune effectors, to fight cancer and other chronic diseases.  CMB305 and G100, the two-pronged focus of Immune Design's ongoing immuno-oncology clinical programs, are the product of its two synergistic discovery platforms, ZVex^® and GLAAS^TM. Immune Design has offices in Seattle and South San Francisco. For more information, visit www.immunedesign.com.

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