Five Prime's Williams Plans To Transition From CEO To Executive Chairman In 2018

(RTTNews) - Five Prime Therapeutics Inc. (FPRX) announced Lewis "Rusty" Williams, M.D., Ph.D., founder of Five Prime, plans to transition from the position of President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Five Prime to the role of Executive Chairman of the Board in 2018.

The company noted that it will conduct a comprehensive search for a candidate to fill the CEO position. Williams will remain in his current role until the new CEO has been appointed.

As part of ongoing succession planning discussions, the transition is expected to occur in 2018. In addition to the Executive Chairman role, Williams will serve as chair of the Five Prime Scientific Advisory Board. He will also lead a small innovation team focused on utilizing Five Prime's unique discovery platform to generate potential novel therapeutic approaches.

Williams, 68, founded Five Prime in December 2001 and has served as a member of the Board since January 2002. He transitioned from President and Chief Executive Officer to Executive Chairman in July 2003. In August 2011, he returned as President and CEO of Five Prime, during which time he advanced Five Prime from a private discovery company to a public company with more than 200 employees, three clinical-stage programs and numerous programs in IND-enabling studies. He has served as Chairman of the Board since March 2016.

Prior to Five Prime, Dr. Williams spent seven years at Chiron Corporation, a biopharmaceutical company, now Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, Inc., most recently as its Chief Scientific Officer and president of R&D. He also served on Chiron's board of directors from 1999 to 2001.

Prior to joining Chiron, Dr. Williams was a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and served as director of the University's Cardiovascular Research Institution and Daiichi Research Center. Dr. Williams also has served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital and co-founded COR Therapeutics, Inc.

Williams currently serves on the board of directors of Protagonist Therapeutics, Inc. He was previously a member of the boards of directors of COR Therapeutics, Inc., Beckman Coulter, Inc., Duke University, Rice University and the Berklee College of Music.