Aurinia Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced the appointment of three seasoned leaders to the Aurinia executive team. Volker Knappertz, MD, will join Aurinia as Executive Vice President (EVP), Research and Development to lead the consolidated Research and Development function. Additionally, Scott Habig has been named Aurinia's new Chief Commercial Officer and will lead efforts to ensure further commercial success for LUPKYINIS®, Aurinia's first FDA approved product, as well as future products.

DeDe Sheel has been hired as Vice President (VP), Investor Relations, where she will manage the Company's relationships with investors and analysts, and assist them in understanding the Company's business model, long-term strategy, governance, and financial performance. Max Colao, who led the formation of Aurinia's commercial organization and the launch of LUPKYNIS in 2021, is leaving the company to tend to personal matters. Neil Solomons, MD, Chief Medical Officer and Robert B. Huizinga, PhD, RN, CNeph(C), EVP, Research will remain in their current roles and continue as members of the executive committee.

Volker Knappertz, MD most recently served as the Chief Medical Officer and Executive VP of Research and Development at GW Pharmaceuticals, developing medicines for rare and orphan diseases as well as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders and neurodegenerative diseases. At GW, he was instrumental in driving the transformation of GW from a botanical pharmaceutical company to a fully integrated biopharmaceutical R&D and innovation focused organization, the development of a deep pipeline of both plant-derived and synthetic drug candidates and growing the R&D organization to over 350 internal employees. Previously, Volker was the VP of Global Clinical Development at Teva Pharmaceuticals, for multiple sclerosis, oncology and biosimilar products achieving several drug approvals.

Dr. Knappertz received his magna cum laude doctorate and Medical Degree from Cologne University. He was trained in Neurology at Yale University and is a US board certified neurologist and has served as adjunct faculty in Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and Heinrich-Heine University in Düsseldorf. Scott Habig joins Aurinia after serving for the past 10 years in numerous leadership roles at UCB Inc. Most recently, he was Head of Global SLE, maintaining full responsibility for pre-launch and commercial launch activities of a novel CD40 ligand currently in Phase III of clinical development for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE).

Scott brings more than 20 years of global and U.S. sales and marketing experience to Aurinia, with strong relevant knowledge of the Rheumatology and Lupus markets. His previous roles include VP, Sales at Human Genome Sciences, where he led the development and execution of organizational capabilities and infrastructure to support the company's first sales team and led organizational and operational initiatives to guide the first major Lupus drug launch in more than 50 years. Prior to this role, Scott spent nine years at Centocor Inc. where he led development and execution of sales and marketing strategies for one of the first biologic therapies approved for multiple autoimmune disorders.

Under Scott's sales and marketing leadership at Centocor, the company transformed a multimillion-dollar pipeline into a multibillion-dollar product. Scott replaces Max Colao who is departing Aurinia to tend to personal matters. DeDe Sheel comes to Aurinia with over 15 years of experience in IR, most recently as Vice President, Investor Relations at Sierra Oncology (acquired by GSK) and Vice President, Investor relations at Aimmune Therapeutics (acquired by Nestlé Health Science).

She also led investor relations at Myovant Sciences, Anacor Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer) and Exelixis. As the head of the IR, she successfully diversified and expanded the shareholder bases as the companies transitioned from development stage to commercial stage, and she was instrumental in securing approximately $1B of equity and debt financings. Prior to working in investor relations, DeDe was in healthcare investment banking, first with Banc of America Securities and then Deutsche Bank.

She holds an MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and a B.S. in Business Administration from UC Berkeley.