Trellus Health plc

("Trellus Health" or the "Company")

Appointment of Chief Financial Officer

LONDON, UK. AND NEW YORK, U.S. (21 January 2022). Trellus Health plc (AIM: TRLS), which is commercialising a scientifically validated, resilience-based, connected health solution for chronic condition management, announces the appointment of Richard Evans as Interim Chief Financial Officer, with immediate effect.

Richard will replace Salim Hamir who has been fulfilling the role on a part-time basis and who will continue in the role of Company Secretary.

Richard was previously Chief Operating Officer and Finance Director at AIM listed EKF Diagnostics Holdings plc ("EKF"). Richard has spent more than 11 years at EKF, first as Finance Director and then as Chief Operating Officer, before taking on both roles. During that time EKF has grown considerably, delivering record turnover and profits for the year ended 2020, and a series of performance upgrades during 2021.  Having stood down from the EKF Board on 1 January 2022, Richard will continue to provide handover support to his successor at EKF, and now has capacity to guide Trellus during a pivotal period in its development. As the Company develops commercially, it expects to recruit a permanent CFO later this year. 

Richard joined EKF in 2011 from Hitachi Data Systems GmbH where he has worked since 2002, firstly as Finance Director, where he had overall responsibility for the finance function in Germany, then General Manager and finally as Global Account Director.

Before joining Hitachi Richard held senior positions with various corporations across Europe. Richard was previously Vice-President Controller Europe for Fisher Scientific Worldwide, Finance Director of TRW Seat Belt Systems Europe, and held various roles with the Maxtor Corporation, United Technologies Carrier and Abbott Diagnostic Products GmbH in Germany.

Richard qualified as a Chartered Management Accountant in 1983 and holds a degree from Edinburgh University and a Masters in Business Administration from INSEAD.

Monique Fayad, CEO of Trellus Health, said: "We are very pleased to welcome Richard Evans to the Trellus Health team and we look forward to benefitting from his AIM market experience as well as his extensive knowledge of operational matters for growing healthcare companies. We are also very grateful for the valued contribution from Salim Hamir, particularly in the build up to and during our AIM IPO in May last year, and we appreciate his continued support as Company Secretary."

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About Trellus Health plc (www.trellushealth.com)

Trellus Health (LSE: TRLS) is a leading pioneer in resilience-driven care and the first digital health company focused on the intersection of chronic physical conditions and mental health. Trellus Health's digital-first chronic care management solution integrates convenient access to a licensed multidisciplinary care team with a suite of tools for resilience assessment, education and behavior modification, remote monitoring, health maintenance and prevention. Through its TrellusElevate™ connected care platform and companion App, the company enables coordination and delivery of expert whole-person care, addressing both clinical and behavioral health together, in context, to improve outcomes and reduce healthcare costs for patients, employers, and the healthcare system.

Trellus Health is commercialising the provision of digital chronic condition management solutions for employers and health plans that utilise the scientifically validated resilience-based methodology and a proprietary HIPAA-compliant technology platform called TrellusElevate™ to coordinate and deliver personalised care remotely via telehealth. The Company is initially focused on Inflammatory bowel disease ("IBD"), which includes the chronic incurable conditions of Crohn's Disease and ulcerative colitis, but considers its approach to have potential utility and demand across many chronic conditions.  A direct-to-consumer (DTC) offering is also being devised for IBD, allowing patients to pay directly or submit claims for insurance reimbursement utilising existing procedural codes.

The TrellusElevate™ platform is the Company's proprietary connected health platform that incorporates the proprietary methodology and learnings on resilience from clinical research and practice conducted at the Mount Sinai IBD Center for more than five years. The proprietary methodology and resilience-driven multidisciplinary care model have been scientifically validated to demonstrate meaningful improvements in patient outcomes, 71% reduction in Emergency Department (A&E) visits, and 94% reduction in unplanned hospitalisations, which the directors of the Company believe indicates the potential for significant cost savings for healthcare payers.  IBD patients treated using the methodology also experienced a 49% reduction in required opioid use and a 73% reduction in corticosteroid use 12 months following program completion.

The Company was founded by Dr. Marla C. Dubinsky, MD and Dr. Laurie Keefer, PhD, both with decades of combined experience in IBD and psychogastroenterology, respectively. Trellus Health's patent-pending GRITT^TM resilience assessment and personalized treatment methodology was developed and validated at the Mount Sinai Health System to build resilience and wellness for improved outcomes at lower cost.

Shares in Trellus Health were admitted to trading on AIM in May 2021, under the ticker TRLS.  For more information on Trellus Health, visit www.trellushealth.com