Aratana Therapeutics Elects Wendy Yarno as Chairman of the Board of Directors

KANSAS CITY, Kan., Aug. 10, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Aratana Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: PETX), a pet therapeutics company focused on the licensing, development and commercialization of innovative biopharmaceutical products for companion animals, today announced that the Board of Directors has elected Wendy Yarno as Chairman of Aratana's Board of Directors. She will replace Jay Lichter, Ph.D., who has resigned from the Board.

Stated Dr. Lichter, "I am delighted to transition the Chairmanship to Ms. Yarno. Given her extensive commercial expertise and experience at multiple multinational healthcare companies, we view this as a strategic move as we transition from a development-stage company to one that also has commercial operations."

According to Ms. Yarno, "I am both honored and eager to serve as Aratana's newly-appointed Chairman." "Aratana has had a great deal of recent success in its development pipeline. With this success, the company has moved closer to its objective of having six products on the market next year. I look forward to applying my expertise during this exciting time of growth for Aratana."

Added Steven St. Peter, M.D, founder and CEO of Aratana, "Aratana is transforming itself at all levels to step up to the exciting commercial opportunity ahead of us. Of course, we have already benefitted from Ms. Yarno's current board membership, but we welcome her in this expanded role.  We greatly appreciate Dr. Lichter's many years of service to Aratana as he has directly impacted Aratana's success, and we wish him the best as he continues his very successful venture capital career."

Ms. Yarno has been a member of Aratana's Board since 2013 and previously held various management positions leading multiple business groups during her 26-year career at Merck & Co, Inc., including Chief Marketing Officer where she led a team of more than 3,000 responsible for supporting product commercialization across more than 20 therapeutic areas. She has also served as Merck's Senior Vice President of Human Resources and Vice President of Johnson & Johnson, Ortho McNeil Pharmaceutical's highly profitable Women's Health Care Franchise.

In addition to her board position with Aratana, Ms. Yarno currently holds public company board positions with St. Jude Medical, Inc. and Medivation, Inc. 

About Aratana Therapeutics

Aratana Therapeutics is a pet therapeutics company focused on licensing, developing and commercializing innovative biopharmaceutical products for companion animals. Aratana believes that it can leverage the investment in the human biopharmaceutical industry to bring therapeutics to pets in a capital and time efficient manner. The company's pipeline includes therapeutic candidates targeting pain, inappetence, cancer, viral diseases, allergy and other serious medical conditions.  Aratana believes the development and commercialization of these therapeutics will permit veterinarians and pet owners to manage pets' medical needs safely and effectively, resulting in longer and improved quality of life for pets. For more information, please visit www.aratana.com.

Forward-Looking Statements Disclaimer
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including without limitation statements with respect to the Company's plans and opportunities, including without limitation offering innovative therapeutics; potentially bringing six products on the market next year, and the Company's anticipated commercial opportunities and growth.

These forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations. These statements are neither promises nor guarantees, but involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the following: our history of operating losses and expectations of losses for the foreseeable future; failure to obtain sufficient capital to fund our operations; our substantial dependence on the success of certain of our product candidates; our dependence on novel technologies and compliance with complex regulatory requirements; our inability to obtain regulatory approval for our existing or future product candidates; the lack of commercial success of our current or future product candidates; our inability to realize all of the anticipated benefits of our acquisitions and difficulty integrating acquired businesses; the uncertainty of outcomes of the development of pet therapeutics, which is a lengthy and expensive process; effects of competition; our inability to identify, license, develop and commercialize additional product candidates; our failure to attract and keep senior management and key scientific personnel; our reliance on third-party manufacturers, suppliers, and partners; regulatory restrictions on the marketing of our product candidates; unanticipated difficulties or challenges in the relatively new field of biologics development and manufacturing;  our small commercial organization; difficulties managing the growth of our organization; our significant costs of operating as a public company; risks related to the restatement of our financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2013 and the identification of a material weakness in our internal control over financial reporting; changes in distribution channels for pet therapeutics; consolidation of our customers; limitations on our ability to use our net operating carryforwards; impact of generic products; unanticipated safety or efficacy concerns; our limited patents and patent rights; our failure to comply with our intellectual property license obligations; our infringement of third party patents and challenges to our patents or rights; litigation resulting from the misuse of our confidential information; the uncertainty of the regulatory approval process; our failure to comply with regulatory requirements or obtain foreign regulatory approvals; our failure to report adverse medical events related to our products; legislative or regulatory changes; the volatility of our stock price; our status as an "emerging growth company," as defined in the JOBS Act; the potential for dilution if we sell shares of our common stock in future financings; the influence of significant stockholders over our business; and effects of anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law. These and other important factors discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, on March 16, 2015, along with our other reports filed with the SEC could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by the forward-looking statements made in this press release. Any such forward-looking statements represent management's estimates as of the date of this press release. While we may elect to update such forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we disclaim any obligation to do so, even if subsequent events cause our views to change. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.

Contacts:

For investor inquires:
Aratana Therapeutics, Inc.
 
Craig Tooman
ctooman@aratana.com; (913) 353-1026

For media inquiries:
Tiberend Strategic Advisors, Inc.
Andrew Mielach
amielach@tiberend.com; (212) 375-2694

SOURCE Aratana Therapeutics, Inc.