Announcement of Changes to Officer Personnel

Tokyo (March 1st, 2022)-, Cellusion Inc., a regenerative medicine startup aiming to solve the global Corneal transplant waiting list problem with unique differentiation induction method from iPS cells to Corneal Endothelial Cell Substitute from iPS Cells (CECSi Cells) for bullous keratopathy novel treatment (PJ code: CLS001), today announced to appoint Ms. ChiaoFang [Joyce] Cheng as its board of director dispatched from Industrial Technology Investment Corporation (ITIC) and Mr. Ikuo Mashimo as its auditor. Cellusion also announced to assign Joji Hayashida, Ph.D., MBA, current CFO, as its Executive Vice President & COO.
Cellusion will enhance to its efforts to deliver CLS001 for bullous keratopathy patients all over the world with new management team.

Newly Appointed Board of Director: ChiaoFang [Joyce] Cheng
Newly Appointed Auditor: Ikuo Mashimo
Newly Appointed EVP & COO: Joji Hayashida, Ph.D., MBA

[About Ms. Joyce Cheng]
After her graduating from the University of Rochester, Joyce joined Rakuten Group, Inc. and worked as a manager in the Digital Marketing Department and Cross Border Trading Department before joining ITIC as an Investment Manager in 2017. At ITIC, she focuses on investing in Deep Startups, mainly located in Japan and Taiwan. She also serves the fund manager of Golden Asia Fund, co-founded by ITIC and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, and contributes to the collaboration on the development of the startup systems between Taiwan and Japan.

[About Mr. Ikuo Mashimo]
After his graduating from Tokyo University of Science, Mr. Mashimo joined SRL Corporation, where he served the Executive Director in charge of the Inspection Division and the Quality Assurance Division. During his career at SRL, he also served as a full-time auditor of FUJIREBIO Inc, an affiliate of H.U. Group Holdings Inc. He joined Cellusion after serving the full-time corporate auditor of IDAC Theranostics, Inc., a biotech startup with unique humanized anti-CD4 antibody.

[About Joji Hayashida, Ph.D., MBA]
After his Ph.D. study in the University of Chicago, via a postdoctoral fellow at the Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer Center, he joined Astellas Pharm Inc. in 2011. He involved XOSPATA® tablets process development, regenerative medicine division management, and M&As of Universal Cells Inc. and Quethera Inc. After his MBA from Waseda business school, He joined Cellusion in 2019, and has been in charge of corporate management including finance ＆ accounting, series A and B financing, business planning & development, and human resource management as its CFO.

[About CLS001]
Despite of the fact that more than 13 million waiting patients for potential blinding diseases such as Bullous Keratopathy, which can only be prevented by corneal transplantation, only about 180,000 corneal transplants are performed annually in global. The reason for such the large medical supply-demand gap generated is because current treatments require donor corneas, skilled corneal transplant ophthalmologists, and Eye Banks.
Cellusion is developing CLS001, CECSi cells for Corneal Endothelial regeneration to cure Bullous Keratopathy which is applied more than half of all cases of corneal transplantation. CLS001 is expected to replace the current supply limitations by combining “CECSi Cells made from iPS cells with excellent proliferative properties” and “a simple injection cell delivery procedure without needs of human expertise.“
The initiation approval of the CLS001 first in human investigator-initiated clinical study has already been obtained from the Keio University Specially Certified Committee for Regenerative Medicine as well as the Health Sciences Council of MHLW, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare of Japan in July 2021. Keio University and Cellusion are scheduled to start the study at Keio University Hospital as soon as it is ready.

[About Cellusion Inc.]
Cellusion is a regenerative medicine startup born from the Department of Ophthalmology, Keio University School of Medicine in 2015. Cellusion aims to contribute to the improvement of health and well-being around the world by solving unmet medical needs in medicine with its cutting-edge cell therapy technologies, including a unique differentiation induction method from iPS cells to CECSi Cells. Cellusion’s mission is to a community the clear vision of the future with cellular technology breakthrough.

Company ： Cellusion Inc.
CEO ： Shin Hatou, M.D., Ph.D.
Headquarter ：1-13-7 Nihombashi-Muromachi, Chuo, Tokyo 103-0022, JAPAN
Founded ： January 2015
TEL：＋81-3-5843-1785
URL ： https://cellusion.jp/en/

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