WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Tarveda Therapeutics, Inc., a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of potent and selective precision oncology medicines, which it refers to as Pentarin® miniature drug conjugates, today announced the appointment of Brian Roberts as President and Chief Executive Officer effective September 30, 2020. Mr. Roberts will succeed Drew Fromkin, who has resigned from his roles as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board to pursue other interests and will transition to an advisory role.
“Brian has been instrumental in the growth and corporate development of Tarveda in his roles as President and Chief Financial Officer over the last several years, and brings the experience and skill needed to propel Tarveda forward,” said Guido Magni, M.D., Ph.D., Partner at Versant Ventures. “On behalf of the Tarveda Board of Directors, I would like to express our deep thanks to Drew for his vision, leadership and years of service as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman. We appreciate his many contributions to Tarveda and wish him well in his new endeavors.”
“I am grateful to the Tarveda Board and our investors for their ongoing support during this stage in the company’s evolution,” said Mr. Roberts. “We have an exceptional team at Tarveda, and I am thrilled to continue to work with them in this new capacity, as we execute on our strategy to advance the company, our clinical programs and platform capabilities. This is an exciting time as both of our clinical programs, PEN-221 and PEN-866, rapidly progress towards data points over the coming quarters and as we continue to advance additional miniature drug conjugates from our HSP90 platform towards the clinic.”
Mr. Roberts served as Chief Financial Officer of Tarveda since joining the company in January 2018, and in March 2020 was appointed to President and Chief Financial Officer. Prior to joining Tarveda, Mr. Roberts served as Chief Financial and Operating Officer at Avedro, Inc. During his tenure, he acted in the capacity of interim Chief Executive Officer, leading the company through FDA approval, manufacturing readiness and commercial launch of its lead combination drug and device system. Previously, he served as Chief Financial Officer at Insulet Corporation. During his tenure, Insulet grew rapidly from approximately $30 million to nearly $300 million in revenue, increased its market capitalization to over $2 billion and achieved operating profitability. Prior to Insulet, Mr. Roberts served as Chief Financial Officer for Jingle Networks, which was acquired by Marchex, Inc. Mr. Roberts also served as Chief Financial Officer at Digitas, where he was instrumental in building the organization to nearly $400 million in revenue, resulting in the successful sale of the company for $1.3 billion to Publicis Groupe. Mr. Roberts also held finance positions at Idiom Technologies, Inc., the Monitor Group and served as an auditor with Ernst & Young LLP. Mr. Roberts holds a Bachelor of Science in accounting and finance from Boston College and is a certified public accountant.
About Tarveda Therapeutics®, Inc.
Tarveda Therapeutics is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing a new class of potent and selective precision oncology medicines, which it refers to as Pentarin® miniature drug conjugates, for the treatment of patients with various solid tumor malignancies. Tarveda’s Pentarin® miniature drug conjugates are designed to deeply penetrate solid tumors, selectively bind to the desired tumor targets and accumulate their anti-cancer payloads directly in tumor cells. The payload is retained and then released over time causing the anti-cancer payload to become active in the tumor.
Tarveda currently has two Pentarin® miniature drug conjugates in clinical trials. Its first clinical program, PEN-866, is the initial candidate from its Heat Shock Protein 90 (“HSP90”) binding miniature drug conjugate platform. HSP90 is a molecular chaperone that is highly activated in the harsh tumor environment, but which remains relatively dormant in normal tissue. Up to 75% of solid tumors have activated HSP90, and small molecule drugs that target activated HSP90 have desirable binding properties in solid tumors. PEN-866 is a miniature drug conjugate that selectively binds to the activated form of HSP90 linked to a topoisomerase 1 inhibitor (SN-38), a potent anti-cancer payload. PEN-866 has commenced its Phase 2a trial in various types of solid tumors. In addition to PEN-866, Tarveda is developing additional miniature drug conjugates on its HSP90 binding miniature drug conjugate platform to target other promising anti-cancer payloads such as kinase inhibitors and radioisotopes to solid tumors. Tarveda’s second clinical program, PEN-221, is a Pentarin® miniature drug conjugate currently in clinical evaluation for the treatment of patients with certain neuroendocrine solid tumors expressing SSTR2 on the cell surface. PEN-221 is a miniature drug conjugate consisting of a peptide ligand, that is highly selective in targeting SSTR2, joined through a cleavable linker to the potent cytotoxic payload DM1. PEN-221 is currently progressing through its Phase 2a trial. For more information regarding Tarveda, go to: http://www.tarvedatx.com.
