SwanBio Therapeutics Appoints Alison Lawton to Board of Directors

PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SwanBio Therapeutics (SwanBio), a gene therapy company advancing AAV-based therapies for the treatment of devastating, genetically defined neurological conditions, today announced the appointment of Alison Lawton to the company’s Board of Directors.

“Alison brings significant experience in guiding companies through all stages of drug development and ultimately to commercialization, which are key areas of expertise that will benefit us as we advance toward becoming a clinical-stage gene therapy company,” said Tom Anderson, Chief Executive Officer of SwanBio. “We are honored to add Alison to our Board of Directors, to support our goal of bringing life-changing treatments to people living with devastating neurological conditions.”

“I am delighted to join the team at SwanBio at this inflection point in their development as they progress their gene therapy product candidates for patients with neurological diseases,” said Ms. Lawton. “I look forward to working with the SwanBio team as they advance their programs into the clinic and expand on their platform to help the many patients who remain in need of new treatment options.”

Ms. Lawton has more than 30 years of experience in the biopharma industry, most recently serving as the Chief Executive Officer, President and Member of the Board of Directors of Kaleido Biosciences from 2017 to 2020. Prior to joining Kaleido, she was Chief Operating Officer at Aura Biosciences, and previously held the same role at X4 Pharmaceuticals and OvaScience. Ms. Lawton spent more than 20 years at Genzyme Corporation and subsequently at Sanofi, following its acquisition of Genzyme. She served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Sanofi Biosurgery, a $750 million business that included surgical, orthopedics, cell therapy and regenerative medicine franchises. Earlier, as SVP of Global Market Access for Genzyme, Ms. Lawton led global functional organizations, including regulatory affairs, quality systems, public policy, health outcomes and strategic pricing, product safety and risk management. Additionally, Ms. Lawton worked for seven years at Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis in the U.K. She previously served two terms as the industry representative on the Food & Drug Administration’s Cell & Gene Therapy Advisory Committee and as Chairman of the Board of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society (RAPS). She is currently an independent Director of ProQR Therapeutics, X4 Pharmaceuticals, Aeglea Biotherapeutics and Magenta Therapeutics. Ms. Lawton earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Pharmacology from King’s College London.

About SwanBio Therapeutics

SwanBio Therapeutics is a gene therapy company that aims to bring life-changing treatments to people with devastating, genetically defined neurological conditions. SwanBio is advancing a pipeline of AAV-based gene therapies, designed to be delivered intrathecally, that can address targets within both the central and peripheral nervous systems. This approach has the potential to be applied broadly across three disease classifications – spastic paraplegias, monogenic neuropathies and polygenic neuropathies. SwanBio’s lead program is being advanced toward clinical development for the treatment of adrenomyeloneuropathy (AMN). For more information, visit SwanBioTx.com.