Drug discovery and development company SCYNEXIS, Inc. (Nasdaq:SCYX) today announced the appointment of Eric Francois as Chief Financial Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Francois will be responsible for the Company's corporate finance and accounting functions, and will report to Marco Taglietti, M.D., SCYNEXIS' President and Chief Executive Officer.
"Eric joins SCYNEXIS with broad capital markets experience, strong financial acumen and wide-ranging leadership capabilities. His entrepreneurial spirit and complementary skill set are invaluable at this critical time in the Company's evolution," said Marco Taglietti, M.D., SCYNEXIS' President and Chief Executive Officer. "We look forward to his contributions as we continue the important work of advancing through clinical development our novel antifungal compound, SCY-078 for the treatment of drug resistant and life threatening fungal infections, as well as to the future growth of the Company."
Before joining SCYNEXIS, Mr. Francois was a co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Topi, Inc., a technology startup, which he helped grow from inception to over 250 clients worldwide. Previously, Mr. Francois spent six years as a Director in the Equity Capital Markets Group at Lazard Ltd where he led capital raisings and advisory assignments for healthcare and biotechnology companies. He started his career at Cowen and Company in the Equity Capital Markets and Convertible Debt Groups. Mr. Francois holds a B.A. in Economics and Business Administration and a M.A. in Marketing from Pantheon-Sorbonne University.
In connection with this appointment, on November 1, 2015, Mr. Francois was granted an option to purchase 100,000 shares of SCYNEXIS' common stock, at a per share exercise price of $6.53, the closing trading price on November 2, 2015. The options have a ten-year term, with one-fourth of the shares subject to the option vesting on the one-year anniversary of the date of grant and the remainder vesting in equal monthly installments for thirty-six months thereafter, provided Mr. Francois continues to provide service to SCYNEXIS. The stock option was granted pursuant to SCYNEXIS' 2015 Inducement Award Plan, which was adopted by the company's board of directors in March 2015 under Rule 5635(c)(4) of the Nasdaq Global Market for equity grants to induce new employees to enter into employment with the company.
