Opthea Limited announced the appointment of Sujal Shah to the Company?s Board of Directors (the ?Board?), effective April 4, 2024. Concurrent with his appointment as non-Executive Director, Mr. Shah will also become Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee. In conjunction with Mr. Shah?s appointment, the Company also announced that Daniel Spiegelman has resigned from the Board in his role as Non-Executive Director and as Chairman of the Audit and Risk Committee.

Mr. Shah is an accomplished biopharmaceutical executive with extensive leadership and product development experience and a track record in capital formation that complements the deep expertise in retinal disease, especially wet AMD, of the Opthea Board. Most recently, Mr. Shah served as President and Chief Executive Officer of CymaBay Therapeutics which was acquired by Gilead Sciences for approximately $4.3 billion in total equity value in March 2024. Mr. Shah brings two decades of experience as a biopharmaceutical executive and strategic advisor to the Opthea Board.

Most recently, Mr. Shah served as President and Chief Executive Officer at CymaBay Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative therapies for patients with liver and other chronic diseases. Mr. Shah joined CymaBay as Chief Financial Officer, taking the company public in 2013. Prior to CymaBay, Mr. Shah was a healthcare investment banker for Citigroup Inc. as well as Credit Suisse, where he was responsible for managing client relationships and executing strategic and financing related transactions for clients focused on life sciences.

Mr. Shah currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Tvardi Therapeutics and as a Director on the Board of Stratus Therapeutics. He received an M.B.A. from the Carnegie Mellon University Tepper School of Business and M.S. and B.S. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University.