Bellicum Pharmaceuticals Announces World Renowned Clinical Advisory Board Appointments

HOUSTON, Nov. 10, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company developing novel therapies that can be precisely controlled after delivery, today announced the appointment of four new members to its Clinical Advisory Board (CAB). The new appointments enhance the range and depth of expertise of the CAB, which provides medical and strategic guidance for the company's product development and commercialization activities that include two programs in clinical trials. The announcement coincides with the launch of the company's newly designed website, www.bellicum.com.

The new members of the CAB are: Philip Kantoff, M.D., William Oh, M.D., Daniel Petrylak, M.D., and Oliver Sartor, M.D. They join Daniel Von Hoff, M.D., F.A.C.P., who has served as Bellicum's principal clinical advisor since 2006. Their collective resumes include leadership of pivotal trials for Taxotere® (docetaxel), Jevtana® (cabazitaxel), and Provenge® (sipuleucel-T), the only FDA-approved treatments for castrate resistant prostate cancer with a proven survival benefit.

"The appointment of these outstanding clinical investigators to the Bellicum CAB is a milestone event," said Kevin M. Slawin, M.D., President and Chief Medical Officer of Bellicum. "Their deep experience in clinical trial design and their track record for advancing the care of patients with prostate cancer is unparalleled."

The CAB now includes the following members:

• Philip W. Kantoff, M.D., Professor, Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Chief, Division of Solid Tumor Oncology and Director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
• William K. Oh, M.D., Chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology; Professor of Medicine and Urology; and Ezra M. Greenspan, MD Professor in Clinical Cancer Therapeutics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Associate Director for Clinical Research, The Tisch Cancer Institute.
• Daniel P. Petrylak, M.D., Professor of Medicine, Program Director of the Genitourinary Oncology Section in the Division of Hematology/Oncology and Co-Leader, Prostate Cancer in the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University Medical Center.
• A. Oliver Sartor, M.D., Laborde Professor of Cancer Research and Medical Director, Tulane Cancer Center, Tulane University.
• Daniel D. Von Hoff, M.D., F.A.C.P., Physician-in-Chief, Senior Investigator, Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen); Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of Arizona; and Chief Scientific Officer, Scottsdale Healthcare and US Oncology Research.

About Bellicum Pharmaceuticals

Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is developing clinical applications of chemical induction of dimerization (CID), a drug-based remote control technology that extends the physician's reach beyond the point at which a treatment has been administered. Bellicum's mission is to leverage this smart technology to bring safe, effective, innovative cell therapies to market for patients with serious and life threatening diseases. The company's DeCIDe™ vaccines are designed to kill targeted cells by inducing a potent, durable, fully activated antigen-specific T cell immune response. Lead product BPX-101, an autologous DeCIDe™ vaccine, is in clinical development for patients with metastatic castrate resistant prostate cancer (mCRPC). CaspaCIDe™ is a cell therapy safety switch, permitting the rapid elimination of cells in the event of toxicity. CaspaCIDe™ DLI is a donor lymphocyte infusion administered following a hematopoietic stem cell transplant, in which the safety switch may be activated to resolve graft vs. host disease (GvHD). For more information, visit http://www.bellicum.com.

SOURCE Bellicum Pharmaceuticals, Inc.