REDWOOD CITY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--REVOLUTION Medicines, Inc., a company focused on frontier cancer targets and drug discovery inspired by nature’s lessons, today announced the appointment of Stephen (Steve) Kelsey, M.D., an accomplished physician-scientist, oncologist and cancer drug developer, as president of research and development.
“We are proud and excited to have Dr. Kelsey join as a senior leader of our company,” said Mark A. Goldsmith, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of REVOLUTION Medicines. “Steve has had a distinguished career in oncology as both an academic clinician and a drug development executive in the biotechnology industry. He is superbly positioned to help us deliver great benefit to cancer patients by advancing our lead programs and creating a sustainable product pipeline that harnesses frontier oncology targets.”
Dr. Kelsey has extensive industry experience in oncology discovery and development. Most recently, he served as president of Onkaido Therapeutics, a Moderna Venture focused on oncology mRNA therapeutics. Prior to Onkaido, he served in senior positions at Medivation and Geron, where he led efforts to develop therapeutics to fight cancer. Prior to Geron, he served as vice president of hematology/oncology at Genentech, where he built the exploratory clinical development group and played a significant role in the development of key products Perjeta®, Kadcyla® and Erivedge®. He began his career in life sciences at Pharmacia/SUGEN where he led the initial clinical development and clinical proof-of-concept for sunitinib (Sutent®) in GIST tumors, resulting in its approval after the acquisition by Pfizer. Before his transition to industry, Dr. Kelsey was a senior lecturer in Haematology/Oncology at St. Bartholomews and the Royal London School of Medicine and Dentistry. He was also director of the haematology/oncology phase I/II clinical trials unit at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry and head of the Bone Marrow Transplant unit.
Dr. Kelsey holds bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery degrees (MB ChB), as well as a doctorate of medicine (M.D.) degree from the University of Birmingham, U.K. and is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) of London and the Royal College of Pathologists (FRCPath), U.K.
“REVOLUTION Medicines uses a novel approach to drug discovery that enables it to tackle promising cancer targets that have been difficult to access by conventional means,” said Dr. Kelsey. “I’m impressed with the quality of the company’s research team, founders and advisors, and am keen to help bring the next generation of transformational therapeutics to cancer patients.”
About REVOLUTION Medicines
The mission of REVOLUTION Medicines is to discover and develop new drugs directed toward frontier oncology targets for cancer patients. The company draws inspiration from nature’s lessons including natural products that are inherently rich with biological function. REVOLUTION Medicines deploys an innovative toolkit including REVBLOCKS®, an integrated suite of modular synthesis methodologies applied to simple chemical “building blocks,” and the REVEAL® computational platform, which uses evolution’s lessons to inform selection of chemical scaffolds and guide drug design for non-classical drug targets. Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif. at the intersection of Silicon Valley and the birthplace of biotechnology, REVOLUTION Medicines is a private company financed by top-tier investors Third Rock Ventures and The Column Group. For more information, please visit www.revolutionmedicines.com.
