Cincinnati, OH, May 19, 2022 — Sus Clinicals, Inc.TM announced today the formation of an Advisory Council to help shape the Company’s approach to leveraging the Oncopig Cancer ModelTM (OCM) to support the work of cancer researchers around the world.
Sus Clinicals accelerates qualification of life-saving cancer therapeutics through proprietary pig-based pre-clinical testing services. In collaboration with top research institutions, the Company’s FDA-cleared, predictive large animal model can more quickly identify drugs, diagnostics and devices that have the highest potential for success in human clinical trials, allowing its clients to focus their resources and advance more quickly to in-market success.

“This esteemed group of advisors will accelerate our progress, bringing this predictive model to bear against even more cancer therapeutics in development, and supporting efforts of these researchers to save lives,” said Dr. Lawrence Schook, Chief Scientific Officer for Sus Clinicals.

Sus Clinicals is the exclusive global licensee of intellectual property from the University of Illinois related to the OCM. The OCM allows for the induction of relevant tumors on demand in the genetically-modified Oncopigs, providing researchers with a predictive model of potential results in humans. The patent-pending protocols have the potential to help cancer researchers accelerate development and qualification of various medicines, devices, immunotherapies and diagnostics across a range of cancers.

“We know we have a large animal model that works,” said Dr. Schook, who is also the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Professor Emeritus, Department of Animal Science and Radiology, University of Illinois, and leader of the University of Illinois team which developed the technology. “We’ve successfully bred hundreds of animals and induced dozens of tumors over the past few years at our University facilities. It’s exciting now that we are taking the model and scaling it to advance the work of cancer researchers who are in need of a large animal model that’s predictive of human response.”

“To build on the work to date, we wanted the best minds in relevant fields on our team to help advise us on how to grow this capability even further,” said Schook.

Leading the Advisory Council is Ron C. Gaba, M.D., Associate Professor and Vice Chair for Research, Departments of Radiology and Pathology, University of Illinois Chicago. “We are delighted to have assembled these members of the Advisory Council. We have already benefited from their experience and insights,” said Dr. Gaba.

Advisors to the company are:

• Robert A. Armitage — Retired Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Eli Lilly and Company
• Raimon Duran-Struuck DVM, Ph.D., DACLAM — Associate Professor, Pathobiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine
• Steve Moore — Retired Vice President, R&D, Procter & Gamble
• John E. Niederhuber, M.D. — Director Emeritus, National Cancer Institute
• Regina Schwind — Senior Director, Tempus Labs, Inc.

“We are fortunate to have expertise across intellectual property, innovation, cancer research, large animal model best practices, business strategy and entrepreneurship,” said Jeff Weedman, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder. “I’m confident this team will play a very important role as we grow and scale Sus Clinicals over the coming years.”

“During my time as Director of the National Cancer Institute, I saw firsthand the many challenges faced by dedicated researchers in oncology,” said Dr. Niederhuber. “By leveraging the many similarities between the pig and the human, Sus Clinicals’ model has great potential to identify those therapeutics which hold the greatest potential for success. My colleagues on the Advisory Council and I are excited to be working with this team.”

Sus Clinicals is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, with scientific facilities in Chicago and Urbana, Illinois.