Category: Press Releases

Gosselies, Belgium, July 18, 2022 – Apaxen S.A., a privately-held biotechnology company, developing
novel next generation NLRP3 inflammasome inhibitor drugs for treatment of chronic inflammatory
and auto-immune diseases, announced today that it has appointed Graham K. Dixon, PhD as
Chairman of its Board of Directors and that it is preparing for clinical testing of its lead product MFC-
1040.

The appointment of Dr Graham Dixon as Chairman is an important step in the transformation of
Apaxen from a pre-clinical to a clinical stage company. During his successful carreer in C-suite
management positions at companies such as Galapagos, Addex Therapeutics and Mithra
Pharmaceutical, he was instrumental to the regulatory approval of three pharmaceutical products,
twelve proof of concept studies and ten clinical stage licensing deals. He is an experienced non-
executive director and board chairman as well as an advisor to several venture capital organisations
and their portfolio companies.

In addition, Apaxen expects to complete IND enabling pre-clinical testing of its lead NLRP3
inflammasome inhibitor MFC-1040 by end of 2022 and aims to raise series B round financing by early
2023 to fund the clinical development plans of the company.

Gosselies, Belgium, November 12, 2020 – Apaxen S.A., a privately-held preclinical stage biotechnology company, developing novel oral drugs for chronic inflammatory diseases, with a primary focus in pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) announced today that it has appointed Bart Wuurman as CEO.

Bart Wuurman is an accomplished biotech CEO with over 30 years’ experience in innovative drug development, biotech financing, business development and licensing. He has extensive experience in working with research and development-based companies in pharmaceutical product development in several therapeutic areas, including cancer, fibrosis, cardiovascular diseases and renal diseases. Bart was instrumental to successful biotech company exits in the UK and in the Netherlands. He was responsible for pharma licensing deals worth over $700 million. Bart was CEO of De Novo Pharmaceuticals (UK), AM-Pharma (NL), Lanthio Pharma (NL) and Lyramid Limited (ASX: CDY, Australia), and is Director of Hercules Pharmaceuticals (NL). Bart was also Managing Director of DDF Ventures, a life-science focused venture fund with a portfolio of start-up companies in The Netherlands.

Bart Wuurman, new CEO of Apaxen, stated:
“I am very excited to join the Apaxen team. Apart from showing great potential as novel treatment for PAH, Apaxen’s MIF inhibitors may also have many other applications against chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases via their inflammasome activation blocking activities”.

Lotfi Yelles Chaouche, Apaxen Board member and partner at Theodorus, commented: “We are very pleased to have found a CEO for Apaxen with the caliber of Bart Wuurman. He brings the experience and drive to take the company onto the next level of development.“

Bart Wuurman succeeds Joël Crouzet, PhD as CEO, who has accepted another appointment.

Enrico Bastianelli, co-founder of Apaxen comments:
“We are very grateful for Joël’s efforts to structure the company and lead it through the series A funding round”.