TRACON Pharmaceuticals names Shahe Garabedian as senior vice president of quality assurance

TRACON Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:TCON) announced Tuesday the appointment of Shahe Garabedian as senior vice president of quality assurance.

Garabedian brings more than two decades of broad quality assurance experience to TRACON, including an outstanding track record as a senior executive, the company said. Most recently, he was vice president of quality at Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ:ARNA), and past positions included vice president of quality assurance and GxP compliance at Invitrogen and executive director, and head of quality assurance at SUGEN Inc.

READ: TRACON earns May 8 date with FDA to discuss pivotal study of its drug envafolimab

“We are very pleased to welcome Shahe to the TRACON senior management team,” TRACON CEO Dr Charles Theuer said in a statement.

“He has a strong track record of successful quality oversight that includes the clinical, laboratory and manufacturing functional areas. Shahe’s extensive experience in these critical capacities will be invaluable to TRACON as we execute on our plan to conduct the ENVASARC trial, which is our planned potentially pivotal study of envafolimab in sarcoma, and advance toward commercialization as expeditiously as possible.”

Garabedian commented: “TRACON has a first-class management team, an efficient platform to conduct global clinical trials, and a promising drug candidate with near-term commercial potential in envafolimab. 

“I am thrilled to support TRACON’s mission and oversee quality within its broad oncology pipeline, which has the potential to address significant unmet needs across multiple tumor types.”

In connection with the appointment, TRACON said Garabedian was issued an inducement award consisting of an option to purchase an aggregate of 17,400 shares of the company’s common stock. 

The option has an exercise price per share equal to $1.80, which was the closing price of TRACON’s common stock on the Nasdaq Capital Market on the date of grant. 

The option vests over four years, with 25% of the option shares vesting on the first anniversary of the date of grant, and the remaining 75% vesting in monthly instalments over the three years thereafter. The option has a 10-year term.

San Diego-based TRACON has positioned itself as a collaboration partner that leads the regulatory filings, clinical trials, as well as US commercialization of best-in-class drug candidates, as an alternative to expensive contract research organization (CRO) based development.

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Story by ProactiveInvestors