Alethia Biotherapeutics Announces the Nomination of a New Board Member to its Board of Directors

Alethia Biotherapeutics Inc., has announced that Mr. Christopher J. Morl has joined its Board of Directors as an independent director. Mr. Luc Mainville, Chairman of Alethia commented, "Mr. Morl is an experienced biotech executive who brings to Alethia significant experience in business and corporate development as well as overall operational management. His nomination is occurring at a very important point in time in the life of the Company, Alethia being in an excellent position to establish key strategic partnerships in the coming months and years."

Mr Morl is Chief Operating Officer at Ambit Biosciences Corporation, an oncology-focused biotechnology company engaged in discovering and developing targeted small molecule kinase inhibitors. He joined Ambit in 2009 as Chief Business Officer and has more than 25 years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry experience. Mr Morl previously served as Vice President of Business Development at Agensys Inc., a formerly privately owned biotechnology company that became a wholly owned subsidiary of Astellas U.S. in December 2007.

At Agensys, he was responsible for a corporate development strategy that secured a series of partnership and licensing arrangements, and led to the acquisition by Astellas. Prior to joining Agensys, he undertook an interim role as Director of Integration GlaxoSmithKline for China/Hong Kong after serving as the General Manager at SmithKline Beecham (Tianjiin).

Prior to that, Mr Morl served 20 years in positions of increasing responsibility in research, sales, marketing, and business development with SmithKline Beecham. Mr Morl holds a B.Sc. (Hons) in Applied Biology and Pharmacology from the University of London (UK) and an MBA from Cranfield School of Management (UK).

Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Morl said, "Alethia is undoubtedly a very exciting and promising emerging monoclonal antibody company. I strongly believe that their very sensitive and highly disease-tissue specific proprietary target discovery platform will allow them to rapidly become an important player in the mAb market."