6 September 2018 - - US-based biopharmaceutical company Provention Bio, Inc. (NASDAQ: PRVB) has appointed Avery W. Catlin, a seasoned and accomplished corporate financial executive, to its board of directors, the company said.

Catlin brings more than 22 years of experience as a senior financial officer of public biopharmaceutical companies to Provention.

He served previously as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Celldex Therapeutics, Inc., where he raised more than USD 500m from equity, convertible debt and private placement transactions, as well as devised and led financial strategies to successfully complete several asset acquisitions adding substantial long term value for the company.

As a board member for Provention, Catlin's proven expertise in corporate fundraising, asset acquisition financing and fiscal oversight further reinforces Provention's distinctive competence as the company continues to advance the development of its current pipeline and deploys its unique strategy of licensing or acquiring clinical-stage assets targeting novel mechanisms to intercept, delay or prevent the progression of immune-mediated disease.

Provention's development pipeline includes a Phase 3 candidate for the interception of type 1 diabetes, two Phase 2, clinical-stage immunology candidates for inflammatory bowel diseases, a Phase 1 candidate for auto-antibody-mediated diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus, and an investigational new drug -enabling-stage vaccine for acute coxsackie B virus infection and the potential prevention or delay in onset of T1D.

Prior to Celldex, Catlin held senior financial and operational positions with biopharma companies Endogen, Inc. and Repligen Corp.

He currently sits on the board of Corbus Pharmaceutical Holdings, Inc. Catlin earned a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Boston College. He is also a certified public accountant.

Provention Bio is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company leveraging a transformational drug development strategy that is focused on the prevention or interception of immune-mediated disease.

The company's mission is to in-license, transform and develop clinical-stage, or nearly clinical-stage, therapeutic candidates targeting the high morbidity, mortality and escalating costs of autoimmune and inflammatory diseases including: type 1 diabetes, Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, lupus, and certain life-threating viral diseases.