OREANDA-NEWS. Valneva SE, a leading pure play vaccine company, today announced the appointment of Ralf Clemens, former Head of Global Vaccine Development at Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics amongst other leading positions, and Lisa Shaw-Marotto, former Head of Global Commercial Services at Merck Inc., to its Supervisory Board. Dr. Clemens and Ms. Shaw-Marotto each bring decades of strategic, operational and management experience in the pharmaceutical industry to Valneva's board and, in particular, strong expertise in infectious diseases, vaccine development and marketing.

Dr. Clemens and Ms. Shaw-Marotto replace current Supervisory Board members Michel Greco and Hans Wigzell whose term of office expired on June 30.

Thomas Lingelbach, President and CEO and Franck Grimaud, Deputy CEO of Valneva, commented "We welcome Lisa and Ralf to Valneva, they bring broad and extensive industry knowledge. We are thrilled to have these highly accomplished pharmaceutical leaders join our board as we advance our product candidates and develop our commercial network. We also want to thank Michel and Hans for all the hard work since the creation of Valneva as they certainly contributed to building the leading independent vaccine company Valneva has become today."

Dr. Clemens, MD., PhD., has been working in the vaccine industry since 1988 in various senior scientific and commercial positions including Senior Vice President of Development for the Global Vaccine Business Unit at Takeda Pharmaceuticals International, Vice President Global Clinical R&D of GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines and of GSK's Pharmaceuticals and Vaccines in Latin America, and Head of Global Vaccine development at Novartis. He currently serves as Senior Vice President at GRID Rio (Global Research in Infectious Diseases) and advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Dr. Clemens is the author of more than 150 publications and 250 presentations in the fields of vaccines, immunization and tropical medicine. He received an MD degree from the University of Mainz, Germany, and holds an executive business degree from the Wharton Business School, Philadelphia, US.

Ms. Lisa Shaw-Marotto spent most of her career at Merck & Co. where she held commercial roles of increasing responsibility, culminating in her appointment as Vice President of Marketing. In this position, she led Merck's Global Commercial Services organization, and was responsible for market research, training, marketing communications and marketing operations.  Ms. Shaw-Marotto is currently the President of Executive Perspective Consulting LLC, a life sciences consulting company she founded in 2014. She holds a biomedical science degree from the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia.

Bpifrance Participations SA, the investment arm of French state-owned bank BPI France SA, and currently Valneva's second largest shareholder, was also appointed as a member of Valneva's Supervisory board during the Company's Combined General Meeting held today in Lyon. BPI France Participations SA had been sitting as an observer on Valneva's Supervisory board since 2013.

About Valneva SE

Valneva is a fully integrated vaccine company that specializes in the development, manufacture and commercialization of innovative vaccines with a mission to protect people from infectious diseases through preventative medicine.

The Company seeks financial returns through focused R&D investments in promising product candidates and growing financial contributions from commercial products, striving towards financial self-sustainability.

Valneva's portfolio includes two commercial vaccines for travelers: one for the prevention of Japanese Encephalitis (IXIARO®/JESPECT®) and the second (DUKORAL®) indicated for the prevention of cholera and, in some countries, prevention of diarrhea caused by ETEC. The Company has proprietary vaccines in development including candidates against Clostridium difficile and Lyme Borreliosis. A variety of partnerships with leading pharmaceutical companies complement the Company's value proposition and include vaccines being developed using Valneva's innovative and validated technology platforms (EB66® vaccine production cell line, IC31® adjuvant).

Valneva is listed on Euronext-Paris and the Vienna stock exchange and has operations in France, Austria, Scotland, Canada and Sweden with approximately 400 employees.