BOSTON, Sept. 28, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc. (Nasdaq:ZIOP), a biopharmaceutical company focusing on new immunotherapies, announces the appointment of David Mauney, M.D., as Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer, effective today. ZIOPHARM also reports the details of an inducement award granted to Dr. Mauney, approved by the Compensation Committee of the Company’s Board of Directors in connection with his employment.

Dr. Mauney joins ZIOPHARM from Harvest Capital Strategies, LLC, where he served as a Managing Director. With twenty years of experience in the raising, management and disposition of almost $900 million in life science venture capital, Dr. Mauney will lead ZIOPHARM’s corporate development and investor strategy functions, reporting directly to Laurence Cooper, M.D., Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of ZIOPHARM.

“David brings to our executive leadership team a wealth of entrepreneurial experience, keen insights and multiple relationships that will leverage existing and future capital markets and corporate partnership opportunities, all of which will support our core portfolio of immunotherapy platforms,” said Dr. Cooper. “I look forward to working with David at this important stage of growth for the Company, as we continue to advance the development of our innovative gene expression, control, and cell technologies.”

Prior to Harvest Capital Strategies LLC, Dr. Mauney co-founded and served as a Managing Director of De Novo Ventures, a health care investment firm founded in 2000. Dr. Mauney was also the Lead Partner of Health Care Investments for Asset Management Company, and he was the first employee and Director of Business Development for Fox Hollow Technologies, which later went public and was ultimately sold to EV3. Dr. Mauney holds an M.D. from the Dartmouth School of Medicine and a B.A. in psychology from Duke University.

ZIOPHARM also announces that David Connolly recently joined the Company as Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations.

Mr. Connolly brings more than 15 years’ experience in corporate communications, public relations and investor relations experience to ZIOPHARM. Prior to joining ZIOPHARM, he served as Senior Vice President at JPA Health Communications and before that, LaVoieHealthScience, both communications agencies where he was the strategic lead for integrated communications, public relations and advocacy programs for public and private biopharmaceutical and medical device companies. Mr. Connolly holds a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross.

Inducement Award Granted to David Mauney, M.D.

ZIOPHARM announces that as an inducement material to Dr. Mauney entering into employment with the Company, the Compensation Committee of ZIOPHARM’s Board of Directors granted an inducement award to Dr. Mauney in accordance with NASDAQ Listing Rule 5635(c)(4). The inducement award consists of a stock option to purchase up to 500,000 shares of the Company's common stock, with a per share exercise price equal to $6.19, the closing price of the Company’s common stock on the grant date of September 28, 2017, the date of Dr. Mauney’s first day of employment with ZIOPHARM, and a ten-year term. The stock option was granted outside of, but subject to the terms generally consistent with, the Company’s 2012 Equity Incentive Plan, as amended, and will vest with respect to one-third of the shares subject to the stock option award on the first anniversary of the grant date and with respect to remaining two-thirds in two annual installments on each of the second and third anniversaries of the grant date, subject to Dr. Mauney’s continuous service with the Company through each applicable vesting date and may be eligible for potential vesting acceleration under certain circumstances pursuant to the terms of Dr. Mauney’s stock option award agreement.

About ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc.

ZIOPHARM Oncology is a Boston, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company employing innovative gene expression, control and cell technologies to deliver safe, effective and scalable cell- and viral-based therapies for the treatment of cancer and graft-versus-host-disease. The Company's immuno-oncology programs, in collaboration with Intrexon Corporation (NYSE:XON) and the MD Anderson Cancer Center, include chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) and other adoptive cell-based approaches that use non-viral gene transfer methods for broad scalability. The Company is advancing programs in multiple stages of development together with Intrexon Corporation's RheoSwitch Therapeutic System® (RTS®) technology, a switch to turn on and off, and precisely modulate, gene expression in order to improve therapeutic index. The Company's pipeline includes a number of cell-based therapeutics in both clinical and preclinical testing which are focused on hematologic and solid tumor malignancies.