LEXINGTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep. 9, 2015--
Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. (NASDAQ: SNTA) today announced the
appointment of Alan C. Rigby, Ph.D., as the Company’s Senior Vice
President and Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Rigby brings over 20 years
of academic and industry experience in the areas of structural and
computational biology, drug discovery, and translational research of
small and large molecules in oncology. Most recently, Dr. Rigby served
as Vice President, Global Antibody Drug Conjugate Biology, Oncology
Research, for Eli Lilly and Company at their New York site.
“Dr. Rigby is an accomplished scientist and leader whose insights and
expertise will be important as we explore ganetespib combinations with
emerging agents and continue our biomarker research effort. In addition,
Alan will be instrumental in our efforts to leverage the recent findings
of ganetespib enhancing the immune response to tumors and to advance the
novel compounds emerging from our Hsp90 inhibitor Drug Conjugate (HDC)
discovery platform,” said Chen Schor, President and Chief Executive
Officer of Synta. “Through his leadership at Lilly, Alan has direct
experience guiding the discovery and development of several drug
conjugate candidates for multiple oncology indications. Alan also brings
a strong record of establishing translational collaborations within the
academic medical community to accelerate the development of promising
cancer therapies. We expect this experience will be important as we
continue to develop a broad and robust portfolio of oncology
therapeutics through relationship-based collaborations. We welcome Dr.
Rigby to the team and look forward to his contributions.”
“Hsp90 is a fundamental component of tumor biology and a promising
target with profound potential for affecting the growth and development
of many cancers,” Dr. Rigby stated. “I look forward to contributing to
the development of ganetespib, including efforts to develop a deeper
understanding of the biological rationale behind novel ganetespib
combination approaches and the genetic signatures driving its
anti-cancer activity. Similarly, I look forward to contributing to the
advancement of Synta’s HDC clinical candidates, including STA-12-8666,
for which an IND is expected in the first quarter of next year. To date
this molecule has provided robust and durable anti-tumor activity in
difficult to treat in vivo cancer models.”
Dr. Rigby joined Eli Lilly and Company in 2010. Among his
responsibilities there, he served as the Global Vice President of
Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) Biology and was responsible for leading
the Eli Lilly-ImmunoGen ADC collaboration, advancing novel therapeutics
within the Lilly Oncology Pipeline. Dr. Rigby was also responsible for
establishing and executing on translational collaborations with academic
medical centers within greater New York City.
Prior to joining Eli Lilly in 2010, Alan was the Principal Investigator
of a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded independent academic
laboratory and the Director of the Drug Discovery and Target Validation
Program within the Center for Vascular Biology at the Beth Israel
Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Rigby has served
and continues to serve on national and international granting councils
including the National Institutes of Health, National Science
Foundation, Canadian Foundation for Innovation and Genome Quebec’s
PRIVAC. He is the North American Editor for Current Computer Aided Drug
Discovery and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Future Medicinal
Chemistry. He has published more than 50 scientific papers, a book
chapter and has more than 10 patents that have published or are pending.
Dr. Rigby holds an Honors BSc. in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in
Biochemistry from the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
About Synta Pharmaceuticals
Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. is an innovative, agile biopharmaceutical
company focused on research, development and commercialization of novel
oncology medicines that have the potential to change the lives of cancer
patients. Synta’s lead oncology drug candidate, ganetespib, a novel heat
shock protein 90 (Hsp90) inhibitor, is currently being evaluated in
several clinical trials including the pivotal GALAXY-2 Phase 3 trial in
non-small cell lung cancer. Building on its extensive expertise in the
science of Hsp90, Synta also has a novel proprietary Hsp90 inhibitor
Drug Conjugate (HDC) small molecule drug development program. IND
enabling studies have commenced for the first clinical candidate from
the HDC program, STA-12-8666, and preclinical evaluation of additional
HDC candidates is ongoing. For more information, please visit www.syntapharma.com.
Safe Harbor Statement
This media release may contain forward-looking statements about Synta
Pharmaceuticals Corp. Such forward-looking statements can be identified
by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "will", "would",
"should", "expects", "anticipates", "intends", "plans", "believes",
"may", "estimates", "predicts", "projects", or similar expressions
intended to identify forward-looking statements. Such statements,
including statements relating to the promise of Hsp90 as an oncology
therapeutic target, the development of ganetespib biomarkers and
combinations, the potential of leveraging recent findings of ganetespib
enhancing the immune response to tumors, the emergence and advancement
of novel compounds from the HDC drug discovery platform, the development
of a broad and robust portfolio of oncology therapeutics through
relationship-based collaborations, the efforts to develop a deeper
understanding of the biological rationale behind ganetespib combination
approaches and the genetic signatures driving its anti-cancer activity
and the timing of an IND submission for STA-12-8666, reflect Synta’s
current views with respect to future events and are based on assumptions
and subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results
to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such
forward-looking statements, including those described in "Risk Factors"
of our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2014 as filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission. Synta undertakes no obligation to
publicly update forward-looking statements, whether because of new
information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20150909005947/en/
Source: Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp.
Investors:
Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp.
Daniel Cole,
781-541-7250
[email protected]
or
Argot
Partners
Andrea Rabney, 212-600-1494
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or
Media:
Eliza
Schleifstein, 917-763-8106
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