SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--TP Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focusing on addressing oncology drug resistance, announced the appointment of Sheila K. Gujrathi MD to the Company’s Board of Directors and as a strategic advisor.
“The Board and I are extremely delighted to have Dr. Sheila Gujrathi join us as director and strategic advisor,” said Dr. J. Jean Cui, founder, Board director, and Chief Scientific Officer of TP Therapeutics, Inc. “Sheila is a renowned biotech industry veteran with a stellar track record in oncology and immunology drug development. She is a perfect fit to help TP Therapeutics maximize the potentials for our leading clinical compound TPX-0005 as well as our rich pipeline projects.”
Dr. Gujrathi most recently served as Chief Medical Officer of Receptos, an immunology-focused biotechnology company that was acquired by Celgene in August 2015 for $7.2 billion. At Receptos, she built the clinical development organization and advanced the pipeline of drug candidates, including Phase 3 programs in multiple sclerosis and ulcerative colitis. Previously, Dr. Gujrathi was Vice President of the Global Clinical Development Group in Immunology at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS). There she led late-stage clinical development and supported regulatory filings for Orencia® and Nulojix®. She was also responsible for development of other assets in the BMS immunology clinical pipeline, and advised the strategies for discovery, early development and external business development within the immunoscience franchise. Prior to BMS, Dr. Gujrathi held roles in the immunology, tissue growth and repair clinical development groups at Genentech and served as the Avastin franchise team leader. Earlier in her career, she was also a management consultant in McKinsey & Company's healthcare practice.
Dr. Gujrathi received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering with Highest Distinction and M.D. from Northwestern University in the accelerated Honors Program in Medical Education. She completed her internal medicine internship and residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and additional fellowship training in Allergy/Immunology at UCSF and Stanford. She currently serves on the Board of Directors at Five Prime Therapeutics and previously served as a Director for Ambrx, which was acquired in June 2015.
“I am very excited to work with the excellent team at TP Therapeutics to bring innovative drug design solutions to patients with genetically defined cancers. I have been impressed with TP’s approach and execution in developing targeted therapies and see great promise in its discovery and clinical pipeline to have a meaningful improvement in clinical outcomes for cancer patients.”
About TPX-0005
TPX-0005 is a potent and orally bioavailable small molecule kinase inhibitor for ALK, ROS1, and TRK family. The clinical benefits of targeting ALK, ROS1, or TRK fusion kinase have been demonstrated with crizotinib, ceritinib, alectinib, and brigatinib, already approved for the treatment of ALK+ non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), crizotinib for ROS1+ NSCLC, and larotrectinib and entrectinib in clinical studies for TRK+ cancers. However, the successes of these therapies are overshadowed by the development of acquired resistance. The acquired solvent front mutations including ALK G1202R, ROS1 G2032R, TRKA G595R and TRKC G623R render a common clinical resistance to the current ALK, ROS1, and TRK inhibitors. TPX-0005 is a potent kinase inhibitor against wildtype and mutated ALK, ROS1 and TRK family kinases, especially the clinically significant solvent front mutations, gatekeeper mutations, and emerging compound mutations after multiple line treatments. TPX-0005 will provide new opportunities in the clinic to inhibit the abnormal signaling of ALK, ROS1, or TRK family in solid malignancies, and overcome multiple resistance mechanisms from the refractory patients. TPX-0005 is currently being evaluated in a Phase 1/2, open-label, multi-center, first-in-human study of the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and anti-tumor activity in patients with advanced solid tumors harboring ALK, ROS1, or NTRK1-3 rearrangements (TRIDENT-1, NCT03093116). For additional information about TPX-0005 trial, please refer to www.clinicaltrials.gov. Interested patients and physicians can also contact the TP Therapeutics Oncology Clinical Trial Hotline at 1-858-276-0005 or email clinical@tptherapeutics.com.
About TP Therapeutics, Inc.
TP Therapeutics, Inc. (TP) is a clinical-stage structure-based drug design company founded in October 2013 by Dr. J. Jean Cui, the lead inventor of Pfizer’s oncology drug crizotinib. TP Team is focusing on the design and development of novel chemical entities for established oncogene drivers with high incidence of secondary resistance mutations, newly identified disease-driven targets, and potential targets regulating tumor microenvironment and tumor immunity. For more information, please visit us at www.tptherapeutics.com.
