NEWARK, CA / ACCESSWIRE / October 30, 2023 / Protagonist Therapeutics (NASDAQ:PTGX) ("Protagonist" or "the Company") today announced the appointment of Daniel N. Swisher, Jr. to its Board of Directors. Mr. Swisher recently retired as President and Chief Operating Officer of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, a position he held since 2018.

Commenting on this appointment, Mr. Swisher remarked, "I am honored to join the Board of Directors at Protagonist at this exciting time for the Company. With two late-stage assets in Phase 3 development among its array of prospective value drivers - JNJ-2113, partnered with Janssen, and rusfertide, which is wholly owned - the growth opportunities for Protagonist are significant and clear. I look forward to contributing to the Company's future success and evolution alongside other members of the Board and the Protagonist management team."

Dinesh V. Patel, Ph.D., President and CEO of Protagonist, expressed his own enthusiasm, stating, "We are very pleased to welcome Dan to Protagonist's Board of Directors. His outstanding experience in leading biotech companies from discovery through commercialization will provide us with invaluable perspective and insight as we manage Protagonist's growth through this critical inflection point."

Mr. Swisher is an experienced leader with an extensive record contributing to the growth and success of biopharmaceutical companies. At Jazz, Mr. Swisher has played an instrumental role in doubling the company's product revenues since 2018, expanding its research and development pipeline and executing significant corporate development transactions. Prior to Jazz, where Mr. Swisher will continue to serve as a strategic advisor through March 2024, he served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sunesis Pharmaceuticals from 2003 to 2017. There, he led the evolution of Sunesis from its early-stage chemistry platform to a multi-asset development portfolio. Earlier in his career, Mr. Swisher served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at ALZA Corporation, contributing to its impressive growth leading up to its acquisition by Johnson & Johnson. Mr. Swisher is also a member of the Board of Directors at Corcept Therapeutics and Chairman of the Board of Cerus Corporation. He earned a B.A. from Yale University and an M.B.A. from Stanford University.

About Protagonist

Protagonist Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company with peptide-based new chemical entities (NCEs) rusfertide and JNJ-2113 (formerly PN-235) in advanced stages of clinical development, both derived from the Company's proprietary technology platform. Protagonist scientists jointly discovered PN-235 (now known as JNJ-2113) as part of Protagonist's Interleukin-23 receptor (IL-23R) collaboration with Janssen and followed it through IND-enabling pre-clinical and Phase 1 studies, with Janssen assuming responsibility for further clinical development. Rusfertide, a mimetic of the natural hormone hepcidin, is the Company's lead drug candidate currently in a global Phase 3 development program. The Phase 2 REVIVE study is now complete, with an open-label extension underway. The global Phase 3 VERIFY study of rusfertide in polycythemia vera is ongoing. Protagonist retains all worldwide development and commercialization rights to rusfertide.

More information on Protagonist, its pipeline drug candidates and clinical studies can be found on the Company's website at www.protagonist-inc.com.

Cautionary Note on Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements include statements regarding the potential contributions of Mr. Swisher to Protagonist. In some cases, you can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as "anticipate," "believe," "may," "will," "expect," or the negative or plural of these words or similar expressions. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and events to differ materially from those anticipated, including, but not limited to, our ability to develop and commercialize our product candidates, our ability to earn milestone payments under our collaboration agreement with Janssen, our ability to use and expand our programs to build a pipeline of product candidates, our ability to obtain and maintain regulatory approval of our product candidates, our ability to operate in a competitive industry and compete successfully against competitors that have greater resources than we do, and our ability to obtain and adequately protect intellectual property rights for our product candidates. Additional information concerning these and other risk factors affecting our business can be found in our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including under the heading "Risk Factors" contained in our most recently filed periodic reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and our actual results of operations, financial condition and liquidity, and the development of the industry in which we operate, may differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Any forward-looking statements that we make in this press release speak only as of the date of this press release. We assume no obligation to update our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, after the date of this press release.

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