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Celyad Oncology appoints Georges Rawadi as its new CEO

March 24, 2023 By clonez@celyad.com

March 24, 2023 Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium – Celyad Oncology (Euronext & Nasdaq: CYAD) (the “Company”), a biotechnology company focused on innovative technologies for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, is pleased to announce Georges Rawadi as its new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective as of March 23, 2023, with starting date April 17, 2023. Michel Lussier will continue to serve as Interim CEO until April 17 to facilitate transition.

Georges Rawadi is a seasoned executive with over 20 years of experience in pharma/biotech, as research director, business developer, CEO and board member. He spent four years at Celyad Oncology (2014-2018) as Vice-President Business Development & Intellectual Property (“BD & IP”), and has insightful knowledge of both the company and the CAR-T space. Georges Rawadi has a genuine passion for seeking and creating new business opportunities.

Georges Rawadi currently holds a number of Board positions and consultancy roles in the biotechnology industry. Recently, he has served as CEO and Board member of Ysopia Bioscience (France), Vice-President BD & IP of Celyad Oncology and Vice-President Business Development of Cellectis (France – Nasdaq listed company).

Georges Rawadi holds a Master Degree in Biochemistry, a Master Degree in Microanalysis, a Ph.D. in Microbiology and an Executive Master in Management and Strategy in the Health Industry.

Hilde Windels, Chair of the Board, commented: “It is with great enthusiasm that we announce that Georges has been appointed as our new CEO. His in-depth expertise in the CAR-T space and his significant BD and IP expertise are great assets that will help Celyad Oncology to excel in its next phase of growth. We congratulate Georges and wish him all the best in his new role.”

Georges Rawadi added: “I am passionate about the space in which Celyad Oncology is operating and strongly believe in the value of its IP estate and efforts to overcome the current limitations of CAR-T approaches. As such, I am very pleased to be given the opportunity to join Celyad Oncology. I look forward to working with the team and the board, whose passion and vision I share.”

Michel Lussier, Interim CEO and member of the Board, commented: “We are convinced that Georges’s solid business development track record and immuno-oncology in-depth knowledge will make Georges a great leader for Celyad Oncology. We look forward to work with Georges in monetizing our IP and research assets, ensuring that Celyad Oncology can make an impact on a global scale.”

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Letter to Shareholders

March 1, 2023 By clonez@celyad.com

Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium – Celyad Oncology (Euronext & Nasdaq: CYAD) (the “Company”), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of innovative technologies for chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies, today provides its 2023 Letter to Shareholders.

Dear Shareholder,

2022 has been a crossroad year for Celyad Oncology (the “Company”), with important changes and turning points. Whilst our clinical programs had clear potential, as we pursued clinical development over the years, we systematically discovered more effective ways of furthering our goal to impact cancer with CAR-T cell therapy. Also, Celyad transitioned from autologous to allogeneic approaches, which changed our company dynamic. We faced challenges stemming from insufficient clinical efficacy: our allogeneic program, CYAD-211, as evaluated in the IMMUNICY-1 trial, did not demonstrate sufficient clinical efficacy to be pursued into Phase II studies without changing the treatment scheme or eligibility criteria. In addition, serious adverse events were reported in the KEYNOTE-B79 trial of our lead allogeneic program, CYAD-101, which resulted in a temporary suspension of the trial. Here, as with CYAD-211, we could only pursue the program with a change of the eligibility criteria, which would have resulted in additional delays and costs.

This stream of events in the first months of 2022 led to the decision by the board of directors to reshape the strategy of the Company, to focus on its core assets, its world class research unit and intellectual property. A re-organization plan was put in place in June, under the leadership of Michel Lussier, who stepped down as chairman of the board and assumed the position of CEO ad interim, succeeding our then-CEO and CFO, Filippo Petti. Hilde Windels, a member of our board since 2017, stepped in as Chair.

The Company executed an in-depth organizational transformation in the second half of the year:

  • Significant cost cutting and cost saving initiatives have been implemented in order to strictly allocate the resources of the Company to the activities and programs that could potentially bring maximum value to shareholders. To that end, Celyad discontinued non-strategic R&D programs and opted not to begin any new clinical trial development;
  • A hiring freeze was implemented as of March 2022;
  • 26 employees and four contractors were transferred in October to Cellistic™ (a division of Ncardia) following the acquisition of Celyad’s Cell Therapy Manufacturing Unit (CTMU) by Ncardia Belgium SA;
  • Effective 9 January 2023, the clinical team (eight employees) joined the organization of ProPharma Group Holdings LLC, a global reputed CRO with whom Celyad has simultaneously entered into a service agreement for support relating to the closing of its clinical trials. The clinical trials remain under the Company’s responsibility as sponsor while the clinical workforce has been transferred to said partner to secure a seamless closing of the clinical studies, preserving the best interests of the patients and investigational sites; and
  • The Company also sold several assets (e.g. equipment & refurbishment for 1,3Mi€ in order to relocate to a nearby facility, better suited to the Company’s future needs).

All initiatives undertaken by the Company since spring 2022 have created a projected cash burn reduction that would allow a forecasted cash runway extension by approximately 12 months, up to the fourth quarter of 2023, without any external  financing.

Starting in 2023, Celyad Oncology will now entirely focus on its new business strategy, moving forward with an adapted organization and, we believe, the right headcount to successfully deliver on it.

On the financing side, in the third quarter of 2022, the Company engaged Van Lanschot Kempen N.V. to evaluate several financing options.

In summary, while our clinical results have not lived up to expectations, we are hopeful for the many patients who have been successfully treated in these programs and the solid foundation it has created to move these therapies further. We believe that our clinical accomplishments, strengthened with the current and future research efforts, can lead to commercially successful products.

Having dealt with the 2022 challenges, Celyad has now successfully reinvented itself as a leaner, more agile organization with three clear objectives:

  1. Strengthen its research focus centered around NKG2D, B7-H6 and shRNA platforms;
  2.  Maximize its valuable IP estate and
  3.  Drive innovation through strategic collaborations.

We believe that Celyad is well prepared and has the relevant unique assets and know how to create significant shareholder value in the next few years.

Michel Lussier

Co-Founder, Interim CEO

Hilde Windels

Chair

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Filed Under: Letter to Shareholders, Press Releases, Regulated Tagged With: regulated information

Celyad Oncology Establishes At-the-Market Facility

September 14, 2020 By Celyad Oncology

Mont-Saint-Guibert, Belgium – Celyad Oncology SA (Euronext & Nasdaq: CYAD), a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR T) therapies for cancer, today announced that it has entered into an Open Market Sale AgreementSM with Jefferies LLC (“Jefferies”) pursuant to which the Company may from time to time sell, for a period of up to 36 months, through “an at the market offering” (“ATM”), with Jefferies acting as sales agent, up to $25,000,000 of new American Depositary Shares (“ADSs”), each of which represents one ordinary share of the Company, assuming sales of 2,522,704 ADSs in the offering at an offering price of $9.91 per ADS, which was the last reported sale price of the ADSs on the Nasdaq Global Market on September 8, 2020 . The actual number of ADSs issued will vary depending on the sales prices under this offering, however the number of ordinary shares shall not exceed 2,777,777 shares. The new ADSs will be sold at then current market prices. Sales of ADSs in the ATM will only be conducted in the United States through the Nasdaq Stock Market or any other existing U.S. trading market for the ADSs. No sales of ADSs will be conducted in Belgium or through Euronext.

Celyad Oncology currently intends to use net proceeds from sales of ADSs in the ATM for general corporate purposes, including but not limited to the research and development of Company’s clinical and preclinical CAR T cell therapy candidates.

This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any jurisdiction in which an offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualifications under the securities laws of any such jurisdiction.

The securities are being offered pursuant to a shelf registration statement on Form F-3 (333-248464), which was declared effective by the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) on September 4, 2020. The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus supplement and accompanying prospectus that form a part of the registration statement. A prospectus supplement relating to the offering was filed by Celyad Oncology with the SEC on September 11, 2020 and is available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. Copies of the final prospectus supplement and the accompanying prospectus relating to the offering may be obtained for free by contacting: Jefferies LLC, Attention: Equity Syndicate Prospectus Department, 520 Madison Avenue, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10022, by telephone at 1-877-547-6340 or by email at Prospectus_Department@Jefferies.com.

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