NEW YORK, Aug. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- LifeSci Advisors, an investor relations and corporate communications firm focused on the life sciences sector, today announced the 15^th appointment of a female executive to a life sciences company board as part of its Board Placement Initiative (BPI), a platform launched in 2016 that connects talented female executives with life sciences companies seeking board candidates.

Carol Ashe’s appointment to the Board of Directors for Aptose Biosciences Inc., a clinical-stage company developing highly differentiated therapeutics targeting the underlying mechanisms of cancer, is the fourth BPI appointment this year for LifeSci and the second BPI appointment this year for Aptose. This additional collaboration between the two companies marks a significant milestone for LifeSci as it demonstrates BPI’s proven success in strengthening, growing, and diversifying life sciences company boards. The BPI network continues to accrue qualified and accomplished candidates while companies continue to request LifeSci’s assistance to identify and select appropriate candidates to fill board seats.

“I’m excited to join the Aptose Board at a pivotal time in the clinical development of Aptose’s two product candidates for hematological malignancies,” said Ms. Ashe. “I look forward to being a part of the team that advances this important work.”

Ms. Ashe has over 25 years of experience working within the corporate, legal, business development, and venture capital sides of the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Currently, Ms. Ashe is the Chief Business Officer of the New York Genome Center, an independent, nonprofit academic research institution, where she is responsible for identifying and executing on revenue generating business development opportunities. Prior to her time at the New York Genome Center, she was the Vice President of Corporate Development for Endo where she led the evaluation, structuring, and negotiation of business development transactions for Endo’s branded, generic, and platform drug delivery pharmaceutical business units. Before her time at Endo, Ms. Ashe was a partner at SR One, GlaxoSmithKline’s corporate venture capital fund where she evaluated early-stage through Phase II investment opportunities in life science companies and served as a board observer for a select group of portfolio companies. Moreover, she led GSK’s US Corporate Legal Group, which supported US M&A transactions, as well as its Business Development Legal Transactions team, which supported business development transactions across all of GSK’s business units on a global basis. Ms. Ashe received her B.A. in Biology at Pennsylvania State University and her J.D. from the Villanova University School of Law.

“We are thrilled to have Carol, a highly skilled and seasoned executive, join our board,” said William G. Rice, Ph.D., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Aptose. “Carol has far-reaching expertise in negotiating, structuring, and closing transactions involving life sciences companies ranging from early stage start-ups to large pharma. For this reason, we are delighted to receive her guidance as two of our programs are in pre-clinical/clinical stage and a third program in discovery-stage. I’d like to thank LifeSci Advisors’ Board Placement Initiative for making the process of filling our board seat seamless and introducing us to Carol, who will be an enormous asset to our team.”

“It is excellent to see companies like Aptose requesting BPI’s assistance for the second time to fill a board seat. We are pleased that Aptose appointed Carol, an influential industry leader with an incredible and varied range of transactional expertise, managerial experience, and biotech advisory knowledge,” said Michael Rice, President and Co-Founder of LifeSci Advisors. “We are grateful to Aptose and the companies in our network for supporting our initiative to diversify the boards of life sciences companies. Not only are we allotting deserved recognition to female trailblazers in the industry, we are providing developing biotech companies with expert and specialized advisors to guide their teams through varying stages of clinical drug development and marketing. The momentum BPI has gained is remarkable, and we owe our success to our participants and advocates.”

LifeSci Advisors’ Board Placement Initiative (BPI) was launched to encourage companies in the life sciences industry to diversify and strengthen their company boards. LifeSci meets with a company’s management team or Board regarding the skills and expertise they are seeking in a candidate. After the LifeSci team properly vets board candidates, LifeSci will then make introductions between companies and eligible board candidates. Currently, BPI has helped place 15 women on corporate boards with the intention of continuing this success. Using a proprietary network comprised of board-ready women that the company has built, LifeSci hopes that BPI can become a valuable platform where both female executives and life sciences companies are able to network and to grow.

BPI is accepting resumes from interested candidates and referrals on an ongoing basis. To find out how you can use the BPI network for your next board candidate search, visit www.lifesciadvisors.com/board-diversity-initiatives. Inquiries, resume submissions, and open board seat referrals can be sent to boarddiversity@lifesciadvisors.com.

LifeSci Partners (www.lifescipartners.com) is the leading provider of consulting services for life sciences clients in the areas of investor relations, public relations, corporate communications, executive search, strategic partnering and capital markets advisory. LifeSci combines deep domain expertise and decades of experience in capital markets and communications with a global network to deliver unparalleled services to clients. LifeSci Advisors is the largest investor relations consultancy in the life sciences industry, founded to provide companies with a multi-faceted approach to investor communications and outreach. LifeSci Advisors’ team of financial services and investor relations specialists synergistically pair with LifeSci Public Relations’ team of M.D.s and Ph.D.s, positioning the firm to best communicate its clients’ scientific, R&D, regulatory and commercial strategies to diverse audiences. LifeSci Partners’ addition of executive search, strategic partnering and capital markets advisory capabilities provides fully integrated business solutions for life sciences clients across all stages of development.

Aptose Biosciences is a clinical-stage biotechnology company committed to developing personalized therapies addressing unmet medical needs in oncology. Aptose is advancing new therapeutics focused on novel cellular targets on the leading edge of cancer. The company's small molecule cancer therapeutics pipeline includes products designed to provide single agent efficacy and to enhance the efficacy of other anti-cancer therapies and regimens without overlapping toxicities. For further information, please visit www.aptose.com.

For further information, please contact:

Michael Rice
LifeSci Advisors, LLC
646-597-6979
www.lifesciadvisors.com