Oncothyreon Appoints Guy Cipriani As Vice President, Business Development

SEATTLE, July 24, 2012 /PRNewswire/ - Oncothyreon Inc. (Nasdaq: ONTY) today announced the appointment of Guy F. Cipriani as Vice President, Business Development, effective July 23, 2012.  Mr. Cipriani's will lead Oncothyreon's business development activities for its pipeline of small molecule and immunotherapy product candidates.

"Mr. Cipriani is a seasoned executive with more than 12 years of business development experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors, and we are pleased to have him join the Oncothyreon team," said Robert L. Kirkman, M.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Oncothyreon. "He will be an integral part of our efforts to maximize the opportunities for our wholly owned product candidates as well as the building of our product development pipeline."

Mr. Cipriani most recently served as Chief Business Officer for Immune Design Corp, a privately held biotechnology company developing therapeutic vaccines and immunotherapies for infectious diseases, cancer and allergy.  Prior to joining Immune Design in November of 2011, he served as Vice President, Business Development for Cardiome Pharmaceuticals, a publicly traded biotechnology company, from 2005 to November 2011. At Cardiome, Mr. Capriani directed the out-licensing of Cardiome's Phase 3 product candidate to Merck & Company and in-licensed multiple product candidates. Prior to Cardiome, Mr. Capriani worked as Senior Director, Business Development for Transform Pharmaceutical, Inc., a biotechnology company acquired by Johnson & Johnson in April 2005. He also worked in corporate business development for five years at Eli Lilly and Company and as a management consultant with Accenture. Mr. Capriani received an M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and a B.S. in electrical engineering from Rochester Institute of Technology.

About Oncothyreon Oncothyreon is a biotechnology company specializing in the development of innovative therapeutic products for the treatment of cancer. Oncothyreon's goal is to develop and commercialize novel synthetic vaccines and targeted small molecules that have the potential to improve the lives and outcomes of cancer patients. For more information, visit www.oncothyreon.com.

SOURCE Oncothyreon Inc.

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