Date: 2014-01-14
Type of information: Nomination
Compound: vice president
Company: Onkaido Therapeutics, Moderna Therapeutics' company (USA - MA)
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
Type agreement: nomination
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Details:
- • On January 14, 2014, Moderna Therapeutics announced the creation of Onkaido Therapeutics, a new venture focused exclusively on developing mRNA-based oncology treatments. Onkaido Therapeutics will launch with $20 million in committed capital from Moderna. The new company will focus initially on 15 pre-clinical drug candidates in the areas of apoptosis, central regulatory nodes and immunotherapy. Several of these candidates are already under evaluation in in vivo disease models. By establishing Onkaido as a standalone unit, Moderna intends to accelerate the development of mRNA Therapeutics™ for oncology and deliver the potential of these new cancer treatments to patients.
- Stephen Hoge, M.D., senior vice president, corporate development and new drug concepts at Moderna will take on the added role of founding chief executive officer for Onkaido, and Peter F. Smith, Ph. D., former head of non-clinical discovery and development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, will serve as founding chief scientific officer.
- Stephen Hoge, M.D. is Moderna’s senior vice president, corporate development and new drug concepts, and founded Moderna’s internal efforts in oncology upon joining Moderna. Prior to Moderna, Dr. Hoge was a partner at McKinsey & Company and a leader in the firm’s global Healthcare and Corporate Finance practices advising senior management teams of leading biotech and pharmaceutical companies on a wide range of strategic, financial and operational issues. Before that, he was a physician in New York City.
- Peter F. Smith, Ph.D. has 30 years of pharmaceutical leadership experience with previous roles held at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Searle/Monsanto, Merck Research Laboratories and SmithKline. At Millennium, Dr. Smith served as senior vice president responsible for all non-clinical discovery and development efforts and helped lead all research and development. Over the course of his career, Dr. Smith has also driven the non-clinical development of several major, marketed drugs including Celebrex, Inspra and Velcade. Dr. Smith holds a doctorate in pharmacology and toxicology from the University of Arizona and is a sought after industry expert with more than 50 academic publications to-date.
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