BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Bicara Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing transformative bifunctional therapies for patients with solid tumors, today announced the appointments of Mike Powell, Ph.D., and Christopher Bowden, M.D., to the company’s board of directors. Dr. Powell currently serves as executive partner of Omega Funds and will serve as Bicara’s chairman of the board. Dr. Bowden is the former chief medical officer of Agios Pharmaceuticals and current chief medical officer of Remix Therapeutics and will serve as an independent director.
“Mike and Chris are distinguished biopharma industry leaders that have contributed to the approvals of multiple innovative oncology medicines. We are thrilled to welcome them to our board of directors,” said Claire Mazumdar, Ph.D., MBA, chief executive officer of Bicara Therapeutics. “The combination of Mike’s four decades of pharmaceutical clinical development experience and Chris’ strategic medical and corporate expertise will be critical as we continue to advance ficerafusp alfa (BCA101) into late-stage development for recurrent/metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma as well as other indications.”
About Mike Powell, Ph.D.
Dr. Mike Powell joined Omega Funds as executive partner in 2021 from Sofinnova Investments, where he served as managing general partner since 1997. Previously, Dr. Powell was Group Leader at Genentech from 1990 to 1997, where his focus was on drug delivery, CMC, and formulation of both small molecule and protein drug entities. Before this, he served as the director of product development for Cytel Corp, an immunology biotech company. Prior to this, he was senior scientist and project team leader at Syntex Research (Roche).
Dr. Powell was the first person in the biotech industry to become a fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS). He was previously board president of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, an advisor to the Institute for One World Health, IAVI, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas.
Dr. Powell holds a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of Toronto, and a postdoc in bio-organic chemistry at the University of California.
About Christopher Bowden, M.D.
Dr. Chris Bowden currently serves as the chief medical officer of Remix Therapeutics. Prior to Remix, Dr. Bowden served as a strategic advisor and chief medical officer of Agios Pharmaceuticals from 2014-2022. As chief medical officer at Agios, he oversaw clinical development that led to U.S. approvals for the IDH inhibitors IDHIFA™ and TIBSOVO™ in acute myeloid leukemia (AML), for TIBSOVO™ in cholangiocarcinoma and for PYRUKYND™ for adults with pyruvate kinase deficiency. Prior to joining Agios, Dr. Bowden was vice president of product development in oncology, franchise lead (signaling group) at Genentech, Inc. where he was responsible for the successful development of several novel targeted oncology medicines, including Zelboraf™ and Tarceva™.
Dr. Bowden received his M.D. from Hahnemann University School of Medicine in Philadelphia after which he completed his internal medicine training at Roger Williams Medical Center and the Providence VA Medical Center, Rhode Island. He conducted his medical oncology fellowship at the National Cancer Institute Medicine Branch. Dr. Bowden is board certified in internal medicine and medical oncology.
About Ficerafusp Alfa (BCA101)
Ficerafusp alfa is a bifunctional antibody designed to inhibit the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and disable transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) directly at the tumor site. This approach is designed with the intent to allow ficerafusp alfa to inhibit tumor proliferation, while restoring the cytolytic activity of the local immune cells.
Ficerafusp alfa is currently being evaluated in a dose expansion phase of an open-label Phase 1/1b study in combination with pembrolizumab in HPV-negative patients with R/M HNSCC, advanced squamous non-small cell lung cancer (SqNSCLC), or squamous cancer of the anal canal (SCAC) and as a monotherapy for cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (cSCC).
About Bicara Therapeutics
Bicara Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing bifunctional therapies engineered to combine the precision of well validated, tumor-targeting antibodies with the power of tumor microenvironment modulators. The Company’s bifunctional antibodies are designed to deliver an immunomodulatory payload directly to the tumor microenvironment to ramp up immune cell activity, offering the potential for synergistic therapeutic impact at the site of the tumor. Bicara’s lead product candidate, ficerafusp alfa, is a EGFR/TGF-β-trap bifunctional antibody in clinical development for multiple tumor types. For more information, please visit www.bicara.com or follow us on LinkedIn or X.
