REDWOOD CITY, Calif., July 11, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Atreca, Inc. (NASDAQ: BCEL), a biotechnology company focused on developing novel therapeutics based on a deep understanding of the human immune response, today announced the appointment of Lisa L. Decker, Ph.D., as Chief Business Officer and Courtney J. Phillips as General Counsel.

“I am incredibly excited to have both Lisa and Courtney joining Atreca at this pivotal time as we work to broaden our research and development pipeline and prepare to move ATRC-101 into the clinic in early 2020,” said John Orwin, Chief Executive Officer.  “Our ability to build out our leadership team with individuals of this caliber is not only critical to achieving our strategic objectives but is a testament to the ground-breaking research being done and the platform that we’ve built here at Atreca.”

Chief Business Officer
As Chief Business Officer, Dr. Decker will lead Atreca’s corporate development function, including its strategic partnering initiatives and alliance management. As a senior executive with experience in negotiating and executing strategic partnerships in all areas and stages of biopharmaceutical development, Dr. Decker is ideally suited for this role. Prior to joining Atreca, she served as the Vice President of Business Development at Nektar Therapeutics. In that role, she was responsible for all partnering activities, including most recently leading negotiations for their broad-based clinical collaborations with Bristol Meyers Squibb on NKTR-214.  Dr. Decker also executed multiple additional research collaborations over more than ten years at Nektar with partners such as Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Takeda, and Gilead. Prior to joining Nektar, Dr. Decker was the Associate Director of Technology Licensing at the University of Massachusetts Medical School where she led the partnering and intellectual property strategy efforts for a diverse array of early stage technologies, including the University's Nobel Prize winning RNAi portfolio.  Dr. Decker holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from Tufts University School of Medicine and conducted her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School.

General Counsel
As General Counsel, Ms. Phillips will lead Atreca’s legal, compliance and intellectual property functions. She is a seasoned attorney with deep experience leading corporate and transactional matters at public biopharmaceutical companies, including corporate governance, compliance, contracting, securities law matters and SEC reporting, financings, and employment law matters. Prior to joining Atreca, Ms. Phillips was the Vice President of Corporate Law at Global Blood Therapeutics, where she led a broad range of legal activities.  Prior to joining Global Blood Therapeutics, she was Senior Counsel and then Vice President and Associate General Counsel at Relypsa where she led a wide variety of legal matters as the company transitioned from IPO through commercialization of its first product and acquisition by Galenica. Prior to joining Relypsa, she was Corporate Counsel at Affymax. Earlier in her career, Ms. Phillips was a corporate attorney at the law firms of Morrison Foerster LLP and Reed Smith LLP, where she represented public and private life science and technology companies in mergers and acquisitions, securities law matters and equity financings. Ms. Phillips holds a J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley.

About Atreca, Inc.
Atreca is a biopharmaceutical company utilizing its differentiated platform to discover and develop novel antibody-based immunotherapeutics to treat a range of solid tumor types.  Atreca’s discovery platform relies on the human immune system to discover unique antibody-target pairs from patients experiencing an active immune response against their tumors. These unique antibody-target pairs represent a potentially novel and previously unexplored landscape of immuno-oncology targets and provide the basis for novel clinical therapeutic candidates such as ATRC-101, the company’s lead clinical candidate.  The company expects to file an Investigational New Drug application for ATRC-101 by the end of 2019 and to commence a Phase 1b study in multiple solid tumor types in early 2020. For more information on Atreca, please visit www.atreca.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements regarding our strategy and future plans, including statements regarding the development of ATRC-101 and our clinical and regulatory plans. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements about our plans, objectives, representations and contentions and are not historical facts and typically are identified by use of terms such as “may,” “will”, “should,” “on track,” “could,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential,” “continue” and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Our actual results may differ materially from those indicated in these forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties related to the initiation, timing, progress and results of our research and development programs, preclinical studies, any clinical trials and Investigational New Drug application and other regulatory submissions, and other matters that are described in our prospectus, dated June 19, 2019, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) pursuant to Rule 424(b) under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, which is available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov, including the risk factors set forth therein. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this release, and we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement in this press release, except as required by law.

Contacts
Atreca, Inc.
Herb Cross
Chief Financial Officer
info@atreca.com
or
Media:
Nancie Steinberg, 212-213-0006, ext. 318
nsteinberg@burnsmc.com
or
Investors:
Alex Gray, 650-779-9251, ext. 251
agray@atreca.com

Source: Atreca, Inc.