Oculis establishes presence in US and appoints Sylvia Cheung as Chief Financial Officer

Oculis S.A., a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing transformative topical ophthalmic treatments to improve the sight and lives of patients, establishes its U.S. entity, Oculis Inc. and announces the strengthening of its senior management team by appointing Sylvia Cheung as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). Ms. Cheung will be based in the newly established Oculis U.S. entity and succeeds Páll Ragnar Jóhannesson who becomes Oculis Chief Strategy Officer.

Riad Sherif, MD, CEO of Oculis, said: “We are very pleased to be proceeding with our U.S. expansion and I am thrilled to welcome Sylvia as our new CFO who will play a key role in the next phase of our corporate journey. She is an accomplished executive with a proven track record of financial and operational leadership in the life sciences industry. Her experience in building and financing biotechnology and medical device companies, together with her knowledge of U.S. financial and public capital markets made her a natural choice to fill this key role. Oculis is now preparing for its next important strategic steps and we look forward to leveraging Sylvia’s significant experience and expertise as we continue to progress towards our corporate goals.”

Dr. Sherif continued: “I would also like to thank Páll for his key contribution as CFO. I am confident that we would not be where we are today without his expertise and drive, I feel privileged to have him on the team and to continue working with him on key strategic initiatives for Oculis.”

Ms. Cheung has 20 years of financial and general management experience at emerging growth life science companies. She joins Oculis from the NASDAQ-listed company Anika Therapeutics, Inc. where she was CFO since 2013. During her tenure, she played a vital role in redefining and executing the company’s mission, vision and long-range financial-operational targets; supported and enabled U.S. launches of key therapeutics products; and executed on three strategic acquisitions. Anika’s market capitalization increased significantly during this period from USD 300 million in 2013 to over USD 900 million in 2019. Prior to her role as CFO, Ms. Cheung was Vice President of Strategic Processes at Anika and General Manager of Anika Therapeutics S.r.l. She joined Anika as Controller in 2005.

Prior to Anika, Ms. Cheung held a series of financial management positions of increasing responsibility at Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc., which was acquired by Shire Pharmaceuticals in 2005. Ms. Cheung began her career in the technology audit practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Ms. Cheung holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accounting from the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, an MBA from Boston University, and was certified as CPA in Massachusetts.

Sylvia Cheung said: “Oculis’ pipeline candidates have the potential to be game changers in the treatment of eye diseases. I am very pleased to be joining the company at such a pivotal and exciting time and look forward to working with the excellent team to ensure they have the financial resources needed to deliver on their goal of bringing novel products, such as OCS-01 and OCS-02, that can improve the sight and lives of patients, to market.”