Vaxcyte Promotes Andrew Guggenhime to President and Chief Financial Officer
FOSTER CITY, Calif., Dec. 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Vaxcyte, Inc., formerly known as SutroVax, a next-generation vaccine company seeking to improve global health by developing superior and novel vaccines designed to prevent or treat some of the most common and deadly infectious diseases worldwide, today announced the promotion of Andrew Guggenhime from Chief Financial Officer and Chief Business Officer to President and Chief Financial Officer effective January 1, 2021. In this new role, Mr. Guggenhime will lead the finance, human resources, corporate communications, investor relations, business and corporate development, strategy, information technology and facilities activities at Vaxcyte.
"Andrew has demonstrated his outstanding leadership capabilities since joining Vaxcyte earlier this year, and brings significant experience across a wide range of functions," said Grant Pickering, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of Vaxcyte. "Today's announcement reflects an evolution in our leadership structure which enables us to continue to scale our organization effectively as we execute on our mission and advance our pipeline of novel vaccine candidates, led by VAX-24, our pneumococcal conjugate vaccine candidate designed to prevent invasive pneumococcal disease."
Mr. Guggenhime joined Vaxcyte in May 2020, bringing more than two decades of finance, strategic and operational leadership experience at both private and public healthcare companies. Mr. Guggenhime joined Vaxcyte from Dermira, Inc., where he served as Chief Financial Officer from April 2014 through the acquisition of the company by Eli Lilly and Company in February 2020. Prior to Dermira, Mr. Guggenhime served as Chief Financial Officer for CardioDx, Inc., a privately held commercial-stage cardiovascular molecular diagnostics company. He also served as Chief Financial Officer for Calistoga Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately held, development-stage company, which was acquired by Gilead Sciences, Inc. in 2011, and as Chief Financial Officer for Facet Biotech Corporation, a biotechnology company that was acquired by Abbott Laboratories in April 2010. He previously served as Chief Financial Officer of PDL BioPharma, Inc. until Facet Biotech was spun off from PDL BioPharma in December 2008. Prior to joining Facet Biotech, Mr. Guggenhime served as Chief Financial Officer for Neoforma, Inc. a provider of supply chain management solutions for the healthcare industry, which was acquired by Global Healthcare Exchange, LLC in March 2006. Mr. Guggenhime began his career in financial services at Merrill Lynch & Co. and Wells Fargo & Company. He currently serves on the board of directors of Metacrine, Inc., a biotechnology company. Mr. Guggenhime holds an M.B.A. from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.A. in international politics and economics from Middlebury College.
About Vaxcyte
Vaxcyte is a next-generation vaccine company seeking to improve global health by developing superior and novel vaccines designed to prevent or treat some of the most common and deadly infectious diseases worldwide. The Company's cell-free protein synthesis platform, comprising the XpressCFTM platform, exclusively licensed from Sutro Biopharma, Inc., together with Vaxcyte's proprietary know-how, enables the design and production of protein carriers and antigens, the critical building blocks of vaccines, in ways that the Company believes conventional vaccine technologies currently cannot. Vaxcyte's lead vaccine candidate, VAX-24, is a preclinical, 24-valent broad-spectrum pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) being developed for the prevention of invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD). Vaxcyte's pipeline also includes VAX-XP, a PCV with an expanded breadth of coverage of at least 30 strains, including newly emerging strains responsible for IPD and antibiotic resistance; VAX-A1, a prophylactic vaccine candidate designed to prevent Group A Strep infections; and VAX-PG, a therapeutic vaccine candidate designed to slow or stop the progression of periodontal disease by targeting the keystone pathogen responsible for this chronic, oral inflammatory disease. For more information, visit www.vaxcyte.com.
Andrew Guggenhime, Chief Financial Officer & Chief Business Officer
Source: Vaxcyte, Inc.