Veteran Medical Professionals Bring Expertise to Enhance Value and Liquidity in the LVP Portfolio

NEW YORK, Oct. 20, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Laidlaw Venture Partners (“LVP”), the venture capital arm of Laidlaw & Company (UK) Ltd., today announced the addition of addition of Paul Korner, MD, MBA and Tony N. Hodges MD FCCP FACP, to its Investment and Operations Committee. Dr. Korner and Dr. Hodges bring decades of medical and clinical development experience to Laidlaw Venture Partners and are expected to be instrumental in the further development and evolution of existing LVP portfolio of companies as well as due diligence on potential portfolio assets. They join Tony Zook, former CEO of Astra Zeneca, North America, in this role.

Dr. Paul Korner is the Chief Medical Officer of Agile Therapeutics, Inc, an innovative commercial-stage women’s health company. He has over 21 years of pharmaceutical and biotech industry experience, having served in senior medical leadership positions within organizations such as Sarepta Therapeutics, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, Ardelyx Inc., and Axovant Gene Therapies. He has been responsible for multiple INDs/CTAs and more than 50 clinical trials (phase 1-4), leading to marketing authorization/approvals of 10 products, including VYONDYS 53^® (golodirsen), NOCDURNA^® (desmopressin), PREPOPIK^® (sodium picosulfate), EUFLEXXA^® (1% sodium hyaluronate), and YAZ^® (EE/drospiranone).

Dr. Korner has experience across novel pathways including gene therapy, vaccines, small molecules, peptides, and biologics across all development phases and multiple therapeutic areas including rare disease, CNS, women’s health, gastroenterology, nephrology, musculoskeletal/inflammation/orthopedics, and urology. He also serves on the Accreditation Council for Medical Affairs Scientific Advisory Board, and CEO of Korner BioPharma Advisors, LLC, providing strategic and operational clinical consulting services to small biotech companies. Over the course of his career, he has authored forty-nine publications across multiple disease states.

Dr. Tony N. Hodges is currently Chief, Transplant Services, Director, Center for Infusion Medicine and Physician Executive Director of Revenue Cycle Operations at Banner University Medical Center in Phoenix. Dr. Hodges has held these leadership positions since April 2016.

Prior to this he was co-founder and Director of the Center for Thoracic Transplantation and Medical Director of Lung Transplantation at the Norton Thoracic Institute at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix. He held that leadership position 2006 to 2012.

Prior to relocating to Phoenix, Dr. Hodges was an Associate Professor of Medicine and Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles. He also served as the Medical Director of Lung Transplantation, Medical Director of Lung Volume Reduction Center, Director of Interventional Pulmonology and Director of the Advanced Lung Disease Center at USC University Hospital.

He has been included in the prestigious Best Doctors in America list yearly since 2001. Dr. Hodges' research and clinical interests are primarily in the area of the immunomodulatory effects of viral infections in transplantation and their role in acute and chronic allograft dysfunction. He is internationally recognized for his expertise in issues related to pneumonia syndromes, community acquired respiratory viruses, lung transplantation, advanced lung diseases and infectious complications of transplantation, the immunocompromised host and the business development of successful transplantation programs.

“Laidlaw Venture Partners believes that the newly formed Investment and Operations Committee will allow us to optimize LVP’s development and commercial strategies and better manage our operations and risks. The addition of doctors Korner and Hodges to our efforts affords extensive regulatory, trial design, management / execution, and clinical experience to the assessment of LVP’s current stable of companies as well as the appraisal of technologies and platforms that could potentially meet our rigorous portfolio selection criteria,” said Pat Gallagher, Managing Partner, Laidlaw Venture Partners.

"We are in a very exciting time of growth for Laidlaw Venture Partners, and the addition of both Dr. Hodges and Dr. Korner to our LVP Investment and Operations Committee further strengthens our ability to add value to our existing portfolio companies and fully vet new opportunities moving forward. These key additions enhance our ability to add value for our companies and investors," said James Ahern, Founding Partner, Laidlaw Venture Partners.

About Laidlaw & Company

Laidlaw & Company is a full-service investment banking and brokerage firm offering personalized investment advice and skillful execution to private institutions, public institutions, and high net worth individual investors.

Laidlaw & Company (U.K.) Ltd., a broker-dealer registered with FINRA in the United States, clears on a fully disclosed basis through INTL FC Stone Financial Inc., a member of the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC). Laidlaw & Company International Limited, an affiliate of Laidlaw & Company, is authorized by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in the United Kingdom.

Laidlaw Wealth Management is an affiliate of, and Laidlaw Venture Partners is a DBA, of Laidlaw & Company.

For more information, please visit: https://laidlawltd.com/

Investor Contacts:

Matt Duffy, Managing Partner
646-335-5923
mduffy@laidlawltd.com

Jason Assad
Investor Relations
678-570-6791
jwassad@bellsouth.net