22nd Century Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: XXII), a leading agricultural
biotechnology company focused on tobacco harm reduction, reduced
nicotine tobacco, and improving health and wellness through modern
plant science, announced today that Richard Fitzgerald has joined
the Company as its Chief Financial Officer, effective November 15,
2021. John Franzino, the Company’s previous Chief Financial
Officer, has transitioned to Chief Administrative Officer, where he
will be responsible for further developing the company's business
processes and leading the Company’s financial planning and
analysis, operational finance, human resources, and information
technology functions.
“This is a pivotal time for 22nd Century as we build out our
leadership team, particularly with the pending MRTP authorization
and international launch of our VLN® product,” said James A. Mish,
chief executive officer at 22nd Century Group. “We are excited to
welcome Rich to the team, expanding our financial and strategic
capabilities as we work to rapidly scale the business across all
three of our plant franchises. Rich brings a diverse background,
including extensive experience in IP and technology licensing in
the life science industry, which we believe is timely as we execute
on our key launch programs in tobacco, hemp/cannabis and hops.”
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at
https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/08064608-6248-4a24-b66c-98b1a9ad88ac
“John has been an important part of 22nd Century’s
transformation since joining the Company. He has helped the Company
advance our primary mission in tobacco harm reduction and to take
leadership positions in two new plant franchises, enabling us to
expand our revenue base, diversify into international markets, and
build our balance sheet to its strongest level in Company history.
In his role as Chief Administrative Officer, John will focus on
further developing our corporate and operational capabilities to
support our growth as we bring VLN® to market, begin to monetize
our hemp/cannabis portfolio and expand our global operations across
all three franchises,” said Mish.
“I am excited to join 22nd Century as the Company readies for a
significant change in its revenue model through the launch of its
disruptive VLN® product and monetization of its highly
differentiated hemp/cannabis portfolio through both IP and plant
line revenues,” said Fitzgerald. “22nd Century has positioned
itself as a critical industry partner across all three of its
franchises, and I look forward to building on this foundation as we
continue to scale the company.”
Fitzgerald’s other roles include serving as Chief Financial
Officer and Secretary of CleanTech Acquisition Corp, (Nasdaq:
CLAQU), a SPAC focused on the CleanTech sector. Previously, he was
a consulting CFO for Atrin Pharmaceuticals, a novel DNA Damage
Repair focused oncology platform, Co-Founder and CFO of SIRPant
Immunotherapeutics and CFO of Immunome (Nasdaq: IMNM), where he
helped lead the company’s initial public offering onto the Nasdaq.
Additionally, Fitzgerald has held financial executive roles at
Sesen Bio (Nasdaq: SESN), Annovis Bio (NYSE: ANVS), and Pavmed
(Nasdaq: PAVM), among others. He began his career as a Senior
Manager in audit and transactions services at Coopers & Lybrand
LLP, now PricewaterhouseCoopers. He holds a B.S., Business
Administration, Accounting from Bucknell University.
About 22nd Century Group, Inc.22nd Century
Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: XXII) is a leading agricultural
biotechnology company focused on tobacco harm reduction, reduced
nicotine tobacco and improving health and wellness through plant
science. With dozens of patents allowing it to control nicotine
biosynthesis in the tobacco plant, the Company has developed
proprietary reduced nicotine content (RNC) tobacco plants and
cigarettes, which have become the cornerstone of the FDA’s
Comprehensive Plan to address the widespread death and disease
caused by smoking. In tobacco, hemp/cannabis, and hop plants, 22nd
Century uses modern plant breeding technologies, including genetic
engineering, gene-editing, and molecular breeding to deliver
solutions for the life science and consumer products industries by
creating new, proprietary plants with optimized alkaloid and
flavonoid profiles as well as improved yields and valuable
agronomic traits.
Learn more at xxiicentury.com, on
Twitter @_xxiicentury, and on LinkedIn.
Cautionary Note Regarding
Forward-Looking StatementsExcept for historical
information, all of the statements, expectations, and assumptions
contained in this press release are forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements typically contain terms such as
“anticipate,” “believe,” “consider,” “continue,” “could,”
“estimate,” “expect,” “explore,” “foresee,” “goal,” “guidance,”
“intend,” “likely,” “may,” “plan,” “potential,” “predict,”
“preliminary,” “probable,” “project,” “promising,” “seek,”
“should,” “will,” “would,” and similar expressions. Actual results
might differ materially from those explicit or implicit in
forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause
actual results to differ materially are set forth in “Risk Factors”
in the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K filed on March 11,
2021. All information provided in this release is as of the date
hereof, and the Company assumes no obligation to and does not
intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as
required by law.
Investor Relations & Media
Contact:Mei KuoDirector, Communications & Investor
Relations22nd Century Group, Inc.(716)
300-1221mkuo@xxiicentury.com
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