ZIOPHARM Announces Five Abstracts Accepted for Presentation at the 2017 American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting

BOSTON, Nov. 01, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc. ZIOP, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing gene and cell-based immunotherapies for cancer, today announced that five abstracts highlighting data from the Company's adoptive cell-based therapeutic programs have been accepted for presentation at the 59th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition, December 9-12, in Atlanta.

Data from ongoing clinical and preclinical studies will be highlighted at ASH including research, conducted with collaborators at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Intrexon Corporation XON, that further validates the Company's Sleeping Beauty (SB) platform in chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) modified T cell therapy and demonstrates the potential for very rapid T-cell production (<2 days) with point-of-care (P-O-C) technology.

Presentations include long-term follow-up data from the initial clinical trial infusing first-generation SB-modified CD19-specific CAR+ T cells and interim data from the Company's ongoing clinical trial of second-generation SB-modified CD19-specific CAR+ T cells that serves as a gateway to the trial infusing T cells manufactured under the P-O-C platform.

Additional abstracts include an update on the Company's lentiviral approach to express CD33-specific CAR with a kill switch in patients with relapsed of refractory acute myeloid leukemia, as well as preclinical data supporting the use of genetically engineered regulatory T cells to treat graft versus host disease.

Details for ASH presentations are as follows:

Title: Long Term Follow up after Adoptive Transfer of CD19-Specific CAR+T Cells Genetically Modified Via Non-Viral Sleeping Beauty System Following Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation (HSCT)
Presenter: Partow Kebriaei, M.D.
Session Title: 801. Gene Therapy and Transfer: Poster I
Date and Time: Saturday, December 9, 2017, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. ET
Publication ID: 2059
Location: Georgia World Congress Center, Bldg A, Lvl 1, Hall A2

Title: Shortening the Time to Manufacture CAR+ T Cells with Sleeping Beauty System Supports T-Cell Engraftment and Anti-Tumor Effects in Patients with Refractory CD19+ Tumors
Presenter: Partow Kebriaei, M.D.
Session Title: 801. Gene Therapy and Transfer: Poster I
Date and Time: Saturday, December 9, 2017, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. ET
Publication ID: 2060
Location: Georgia World Congress Center, Bldg A, Lvl 1, Hall A2

Title: Genetically Engineered Regulatory T Cells for Treatment of Graft-Versus-Host-Disease
Presenter: Hanspeter Waldner, Ph.D.
Session Title: 701. Experimental Transplantation: Basic Biology, Pre-Clinical Models: Poster II
Date and Time: Sunday, December 10, 2017, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. ET
Publication ID: 3176
Location: Georgia World Congress Center, Bldg A, Lvl 1, Hall A2

Title: CD19-Specific Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Modified T Cells with Safety Switch Produced Under "Point-Of-Care" Using the Sleeping Beauty System for the Very Rapid Manufacture and Treatment of B-Cell Malignancies
Presenter: Tim Chan, Ph.D.
Session Title: 614. Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia: Therapy, excluding Transplantation: Poster
Date and Time: Saturday, December 9, 2017, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. ET
Publication ID: 1324
Location: Georgia World Congress Center, Bldg A, Lvl 1, Hall A2

Title: Autologous T Cells Modified to Co-express CD33-Specific Chimeric Antigen Receptor and a Kill Switch for Treatment of CD33+ Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Presenter: Tim Chan, Ph.D.
Session Title: 616. Acute Myeloid Leukemia: Novel Therapy, excluding Transplantation: Poster
Date and Time: Saturday, December 9, 2017, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. ET
Publication ID: 1376
Location: Georgia World Congress Center, Bldg A, Lvl 1, Hall A2

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 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.

Forward-Looking Safe-Harbor Statement:

This press release contains certain forward-looking information about ZIOPHARM Oncology, Inc. that is intended to be covered by the safe harbor for "forward-looking statements" provided by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts, and in some cases can be identified by terms such as "may," "will," "could," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," and "believes." These statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the progress and timing of the development of the Company's research and development programs. All of such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of the Company, that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied by, the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: the Company's ability to finance its operations and business initiatives and obtain funding for such activities; whether chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) approaches, Ad-RTS-hIL-12, TCR and NK cell-based therapies, or any of other product candidates will advance further in the preclinical research or clinical trial process and whether and when, if at all, they will receive final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or equivalent foreign regulatory agencies and for which indications; whether chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) approaches, Ad-RTS-hIL-12, TCR and NK cell-based therapies, and the Company's other therapeutic products it develops will be successfully marketed if approved; the strength and enforceability of the Company's intellectual property rights; competition from other pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies; as well as other risk factors contained in the Company's periodic and interim reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including but not limited to, the risks and uncertainties set forth in the "Risk Factors" section of the Company's Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2017 and subsequent reports that the Company may file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements that speak only as of the date hereof, and the Company does not undertake any obligation to revise and disseminate forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof, or to reflect the occurrence of or non-occurrence of any events.

Trademarks

RheoSwitch Therapeutic System® and RTS® are registered trademarks of Intrexon Corporation.

Contact:

David Connolly
ZIOPHARM Oncology
617-502-1881
dconnolly@ziopharm.com

David Pitts
Argot Partners
212-600-1902
david@argotpartners.com