WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SQZ Biotechnologies (SQZ), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing transformative cell therapies for patients with cancer, infectious diseases and other serious conditions, today announced the appointments of Marc Schegerin, MD and Sapna Srivastava, PhD to its board of directors as well as Micah Zajic as chief business officer.

“It’s an honor to have Marc and Sapna join our board of directors. Their senior leadership experience in the biotech and healthcare fields will be invaluable as we continue to execute on our long-term vision to create novel, impactful cell therapies for patients in need,” said Armon Sharei, PhD, founder and chief executive officer of SQZ. “In addition, I am pleased to welcome Micah to our team during this pivotal time in our evolution. His diverse experience in biotech and corporate finance will provide us with strategic insight and strong leadership as we continue to develop our pipeline and manage our strategic partnerships.”

Dr. Schegerin joins the SQZ board of directors with a wealth of experience in the healthcare and financial industries. He is currently chief financial officer and chief operating officer at Morphic Therapeutics. Before joining Morphic, Dr. Schegerin served as chief financial officer, and head of strategy at ArQule, until its acquisition by Merck for $2.7 billion. Prior to ArQule, Dr. Schegerin served in various senior healthcare investment banking roles at CitiGroup, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs. Dr. Schegerin has also held industry management roles at Biogen and Sage Therapeutics. Dr. Schegerin earned his MD from Dartmouth Medical School (Payson/Hampers Scholar) and his MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth (Don Wilson, III scholar).

Dr. Srivastava was most recently the chief financial and strategy officer for Abide Therapeutics, which was acquired by Lundbeck. Previously Dr. Srivastava served as chief financial and strategy officer for Intellia, where she played an integral role in launching the company’s financial operations and strategic direction and spearheading its initial public offering. Additionally, Dr. Srivastava has nearly 15 years of experience as a research analyst in the biotechnology sector, which includes her work at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, ThinkEquity Partners, and JP Morgan. Dr. Srivastava also has experience as an independent board member and advisor to several biotechnology companies and non-profit organizations. Dr. Srivastava received her PhD in neuroscience from New York University and her bachelors from St. Xavier's College in India.

“We are thrilled to have both Dr. Schegerin and Dr. Srivastava join our board,” said Amy Schulman, chair of the board of directors at SQZ. “Both have diverse experience within the biotechnology industry and have demonstrated success across the spectrum of both finance and healthcare, which bolsters our board’s expertise as we navigate the company’s next phase of growth.”

Micah Zajic joins SQZ as chief business officer with over 15 years of experience in biotech and corporate development. He most recently served as vice president of corporate development at MeiraGTx and was responsible for all business development activities. Prior to MeiraGTx, Mr. Zajic worked at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, where he was primarily focused on the evaluation and execution of external partnerships, license agreements, and acquisitions. He started his career in Morgan Stanley's Global Capital Markets and Healthcare Investment Banking Group. Mr. Zajic received his bachelors in economics from Georgetown University.

About SQZ Biotech

SQZ Biotech is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing transformative cell therapies for patients with cancer, infectious diseases, and other serious conditions. Using its proprietary technology, SQZ has the unique ability to deliver multiple materials into many patient cell types to engineer what we believe to be an unprecedented range of potential therapeutics for a range of diseases. SQZ has the potential to create well-tolerated cell therapies that can provide therapeutic benefit for patients and potentially improve the patient experience over existing cell therapy approaches, with accelerated production timelines under 24 hours and the elimination of pre-conditioning and lengthy hospital stays. Our goal is to use the SQZ approach to establish a new paradigm for cell therapies. The first therapeutic applications leverage SQZ’s ability to generate target-specific immune responses, both in activation for the treatment of solid tumors and immune tolerance for the treatment of unwanted immune reactions and autoimmune diseases. For more information please visit www.sqzbiotech.com.