Date: 2015-02-11
Type of information: Nomination
Compound:
Company: Blueprint Medicines (USA - MA)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology - Genetic diseases
Type agreement: nomination
Action mechanism:
Disease:
Details: * On February 11, 2015, Blueprint Medicines announced the appointment of Anthony (Andy) Boral, M.D., Ph.D., as Senior Vice President, Clinical Development. Dr. Boral joins Blueprint Medicines from Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where he served for four years as Executive Director, Oncology Clinical Research. At Blueprint Medicines, he will join the executive management team and be responsible for clinical research and operations as well as regulatory affairs.
At Novartis, Dr. Boral oversaw the clinical aspects of various first-in-human compounds, including ceritinib and the immune checkpoint inhibitor programs. He also served as Deputy Site Head for the Cambridge, MA location beginning in 2013. Before Novartis, Dr. Boral spent eight years at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he worked in roles of increasing responsibility eventually serving as Vice President of Oncology Clinical Research and leading the development of bortezomib, the market leading therapy for multiple myeloma. Dr. Boral holds a M.D. and Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his training in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the Dana Farber/Partners CancerCare program. He also spent two years on staff in the Thoracic Oncology group at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Blueprint Medicines expects to initiate clinical trials in 2015 with its two lead product candidates:
• BLU-285 is the first known selective inhibitor of KIT Exon 17 mutants. Blueprint Medicines intends to initiate two clinical studies with this drug, including one for the underserved systemic mastocytosis patient population and another for patients with genomically-defined forms of gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GIST).
• BLU-554 is an exquisitely selective fibroblast growth factor 4 (FGFR4) inhibitor. Blueprint Medicines anticipates initiating a clinical study for patients suffering from hepatocellular carcinoma with aberrant FGFR4 pathway activation
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