Array BioPharma, Inc.

Company Announces Opening of a Second R&D site in Philadelphia, PA, and the Appointments of Shelley Allen as Head of Drug Discovery, and Munir Mosaheb as Head of Biology PHILADELPHIA--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Nimble Therapeutics today announced the opening of a second R&D site in Philadelphia, PA. The new site, located in B+Labs, a hub for scientific innovation in University City Philadelphia, will focus on progressing Nimble’s growing pipeline of orally-delivered peptide therapeutics into clinical development. The Philadelphia site will synergize with activities at Nimble’s main R&D site in Madison, WI, which is focused on leveraging its proprietary platform to optimize oral peptide therapeutics at unprecedented scale and speed. In addition to the new site, Nimble also announced the appointment of two senior leaders to spearhead the drug discovery efforts and catalyze the build out of the Philadelphia site and team. Shelley Allen will join as Head of Drug Discovery and will lead the advanced optimization and characterization of clinical candidate peptides and their progression into the clinic. Munir Mosaheb will join as Head of Biology and will lead the pharmacological, immunological and translational aspects of Nimble’s drug discovery programs. Shelley has over 25 years of experience in the discovery and development of high-impact medicines. She joined Nimble from Think Bioscience where she was VP, Medicinal Chemistry, and responsible for establishing drug discovery teams and capabilities to develop their internal programs. Previously, Shelley spent 22 years with Array Biopharma / Pfizer in roles of increasing responsibility, contributing to the discovery of several clinical candidates including oncology therapeutics Vitrakvi® and Tukysa®. As director of medicinal chemistry at Pfizer, she led teams and programs from lead discovery to IND in the kinase space. Shelley began her career at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer after completing undergraduate studies at DeMontfort University of Leicester. She has published > 40 scientific papers and patents and is active in the American Chemical Society community. Munir has over 15 years of experience in developing and applying novel immunological insights in academic and biotech settings. Most recently Munir was the Head of Translational Biology and Immunology at Senda Biosciences (now Sail Biomedicines), where he built a Translational Biology team and led platform and program development, and IND-enabling preclinical data generation. Prior to Senda, Munir received broad training across diverse aspects of immunology. He explored molecular vaccinology during his time at Merck & Co. and the Wetzler lab at BU, studied T cell biology while at the Flavell lab at Yale, and immuno-oncology and cell trafficking as a post-doctoral fellow in the von Andrian lab at Harvard. "We are pleased to open our second R&D site in the Philadelphia area," said Jigar Patel, founder & CEO of Nimble Therapeutics. "This is a reflection of the growing maturity of our internal pipeline of orally-delivered peptide therapeutics, and the need to build additional capabilities as we progress candidates into the clinic.” “I’m thrilled to have Shelley and Munir join us at this exciting stage in the journey of Nimble,” said Pete Gough, CSO of Nimble Therapeutics. “They both bring a wealth of experience in the key areas of immunology, drug discovery and pre-clinical development and will be instrumental in building and leading the teams that will take our programs into the clinic.” "As a medicinal chemist of 25 years, I am incredibly impressed by the power and unprecedented speed of the Nimble platform to identify and optimize oral therapeutic peptides. I’m very much looking forward to partnering with our team in Madison to deliver a robust pipeline of clinical candidates to patients,” said Shelley. “Despite the progress we’ve made with parenteral biological therapies for the treatment of immune-mediated diseases over the past couple of decades, patients want oral medicines. Because of our platform, Nimble is uniquely placed to become a leader in developing oral peptide therapeutics as next-generation treatments for these patients and I’m excited to be part of the team to help this vision become reality,” said Munir. About Nimble Therapeutics Nimble is a biotechnology company dedicated to delivering on the promise of oral peptide therapeutics. Leveraging a paradigm-shifting peptide drug discovery and development engine, Nimble is advancing its internal pipeline and continues to support several partnered programs. The Nimble platform combines massively parallel solid-phase synthesis, unrivaled chemical and structural diversity, sophisticated assays, and powerful machine learning and computational methods. Nimble is located in Madison, WI and Philadelphia, PA. For more information, visit .

Therapeutic Advisory Board to help guide Enveda's expanding clinical pipeline across a wide range of indications BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Enveda Biosciences, a biotechnology company using AI and advanced technologies to translate nature’s chemistry into new medicines, today announced the formation of a Therapeutic Advisory Board (TAB), chaired by Nicholas Saccomano, Ph.D. The TAB will advise Enveda's executive team as they enter their first platform-derived medicines into clinical trials, starting later this year, and throughout the development process. In addition to Dr. Saccomano, a former Chief Science Officer at Pfizer's Boulder Research and Development headquarters, the members of the TAB include James Mackay, Ph.D., CEO of Kateran Consulting and former AstraZeneca Research and Development leader, Zoe Diana Draelos, M.D., Consulting Professor of Dermatology at Duke University, Ethan Wiener, M.D., consultant at Latimer Brook Pharmaceutical Consultants and former SVP and Group Therapeutic Area Head at Pfizer Global Research and Development, and John Teijaro, Ph.D., Professor of Immunology and Microbiology at the Scripps Research Institute. “This is an incredibly exciting time for Enveda as we launch our first trials for multiple lead assets and transition into a clinical-stage company. The members of the TAB are all leaders in their respective areas of expertise, including in specific therapeutic areas, drug development and trial design, and have already provided meaningful guidance on our pipeline progress,” says Viswa Colluru, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Enveda. “The TAB is also a voice for the patients, ensuring we are developing medicines that will truly solve patient needs.” “I find Enveda's accelerated methodology to navigate plant natural product space with readouts firmly based in phenotypic pharmacology very interesting. What makes it exciting is the nature, activity and progressable properties of the program's natural product starting points that are elaborated into REAL drugs by a very capable chemistry team," says Dr. Saccomano. "The leadership has the right balance of technical rigor, curiosity, urgency and team spirit built into their operating philosophy that I have seen in other successful organizations.” “I have been extremely impressed by the talented team of drug hunters and drug developers that the Enveda management team have assembled. Their ability to harness the power of natural plant chemistry to rapidly identify, characterize and develop small molecule candidates towards the clinic has been thoroughly impressive and I am really looking forward to being part of the TAB that will help Enveda to progress these molecules into meaningful medicines for patients,” says Dr. James Mackay. “There has been a slow down in novel molecule development at the bench. Plants offer tremendous molecular diversity providing the building blocks for new drug classes with the potential to address many of the unsolved problems in disease management. Enveda’s novel approach to drug discovery stemming from the identification of plant materials with medicinal effects holds great promise in advancing disease treatment,” says Dr. Zoe Diana Draelos. “I am really excited by Enveda’s approach of using small molecules discovered and adapted from the chemistry of plants to target diseases characterized by inflammation, fibrosis and cytokine signaling. This is an area that has become dominated by large molecule biologics, and so this small molecule-based approach has the potential to vastly improve patient access and to tame the more intractable targets,” says Dr. Ethan Wiener. "I think the discovery engine that Enveda is building could be a mold that others will follow in the future, especially at the AI interface, where they are merging that technology with the drug discovery process effectively, creating drugs that will benefit patients in the not too distant future," says Dr. John Teijaro. The formation of the TAB marks a significant milestone for Enveda Biosciences as they advance their first assets for a range of inflammatory and neurosensory conditions. Multiple small molecules were rapidly discovered from unique chemistry found in medicinal plants using their proprietary platform and advanced in parallel to yield Enveda’s initial wave of first-in-class programs. The Enveda platform overcomes many of the long-standing obstacles in natural product drug development such as active molecule identification, property and structure prioritization, amenability to medicinal chemistry, and large-scale material access, thereby enabling the seamless integration of the natural world into the modern drug discovery laboratory. Founded in 2019, the company plans to launch at least two clinical trials in 2024. About Nicholas A. Saccomano, Ph.D. Dr. Saccomano is a biopharmaceutical professional with over 35 years of extensive research, development and management experience across multiple therapeutic areas. He most recently worked at Pfizer R&D, Inc. as Chief Science Officer and Site Head at its Boulder facility, where he led a 170-person research and development team that advanced a portfolio of small molecule drug programs from inception to proof-of-concept. Prior to working at Pfizer, Dr. Saccomano served as Chief Science Officer at Array Biopharma Inc., and as Chief Technology Officer at SomaLogic Inc. Dr. Saccomano received a B.S. from the State University of New York at Buffalo and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Columbia University under the direction of Gilbert Stork. James Mackay, Ph.D. Dr. Mackay is the CEO and Founder of Kateran Consulting. Prior to founding Kateran Consulting James was Founder, President and CEO of Aristea Therapeutics, an immunology focused company developing treatments for inflammatory diseases. Prior to Aristea he was President & CEO of Ardea Biosciences, and held a number of senior worldwide roles at AstraZeneca, including Global Product Vice President for Diabetes DPP-IV franchise. He played a critical role in the successful development of the AstraZeneca/Bristol-Myers Squibb worldwide diabetes alliance and managed all AstraZeneca Clinical resources, budget, and strategic partnerships with drug development CROs worldwide. Dr. Mackay has 30 years experience in the industrial chemical, agrochemical, specialty chemical and pharmaceutical business sectors and has a B.Sc. in Genetics and Ph.D. in Medical Genetics from Aberdeen University, Scotland. Zoe Diana Draelos, M.D. Dr. Draelos is a research and clinical board-certified dermatologist and a Fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology. She is in solo private practice in High Point, North Carolina, and a Consulting Professor of Dermatology at Duke University. In 1988, she founded Dermatology Consulting Services, PLLC, to initiate and perform research in aging skin, acne, rosacea, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, actinic keratoses, eczema, and aesthetic procedures in the cosmetic, OTC drug, and pharmaceutical arenas. Prior to pursuing a medical career, Dr. Draelos completed an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering and was elected a Rhodes Scholar. She attended medical school at University of Arizona College of Medicine and is author of 14 books including Cosmetics in Dermatology and Hair Cosmetics. Ethan Weiner, M.D. Dr. Weiner is an independent consultant at Latimer Brook Pharmaceutical Consultants, specializing in issues of clinical efficacy and safety in small and large molecule drug development. A major part of his focus in consulting has been on drug safety, and development strategies for drug candidates in a variety of therapeutic areas, although primarily in inflammation and autoimmune disease. Prior to starting his consulting practice in early 2009, Dr. Weiner was Senior Vice President and Group Therapeutic Area Head at Pfizer Global Research and Development, where he was responsible for managing the design, monitoring and management of clinical programs in the multiple therapeutic areas, with an emphasis on inflammatory diseases. During his 20 years at Pfizer, Dr. Weiner oversaw bringing multiple drug candidates through the filing and approval process worldwide. Dr. Weiner received his M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed his clinical training in Internal Medicine at Montefiore Hospital, Bronx, NY. John Teijaro, Ph.D. Dr. Teijaro serves on the Faculty of the Scripps Research Institute where he heads up The Teijaro Lab. He is a Professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology. The focus of the Teijaro Lab is understanding how immune suppressive and pathological environments are generated, maintained and reversed, with a specific focus on how type 1 interferon (IFN-I) production and signaling regulates these two states. John received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Medicine in 2009. Enveda Biosciences Enveda Biosciences is a biotechnology company building the first high-resolution chemical map of the natural world to tackle the toughest problems in drug discovery. Enveda’s platform is the world’s most advanced drug discovery search engine from the expanse of nature’s unknown chemistry, building on years of cutting-edge advancements at the intersection of metabolomics and machine learning. Complementing its breakthrough technology, Enveda’s team includes seasoned drug hunters with decades of experience in the pharmaceutical industry working with preeminent data scientists. For more information on Enveda, visit enveda.com.

In criminal court, a securities fraud charge can carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years.   An Array BioPharma investor is facing insider trading allegations, with criminal and civil cases accusing him of unlawfully trading stock options after learning from his wife—an Array employee—that Pfizer might acquire the biotech. The alleged actions resulted in a profit of $90,458. The charges, from both the Securities and Exchange Commission (PDF) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois (PDF) have been made against Brian Marc Rubin, 51, of Illinois. The cases stem back to 2019, right before Pfizer bought the cancer drug specialist via tender offer. Rubin’s spouse—an account director for Array’s Midwest operations at the time—had learned of the potential acquisition and told Rubin about it in confidence, according to the criminal charges. Through the Array job, Rubin’s wife provided her family with a stable income and health insurance benefits, and she was concerned that if Array was acquired, she would lose her job, according to case filings. At the time, Rubin was unemployed but had previously worked as an options trader, according to SEC documents. Unbeknownst to his wife, Rubin then allegedly traded Array stock options based on the nonpublic information before the deal had been announced. After the acquisition closed and became public, the biotech company’s stock price increased and he then exercised the options for the profit, according to the charges.  According to the SEC, Rubin has agreed to enter a judgment—pending court approval—that would permanently bar him from violating certain antifraud provisions, order him to pay back the $90,458 plus $16,914 in interest and order him to pay a civil penalty in an amount to be later determined by the court. Meanwhile, in criminal court, Rubin has been charged with one count of securities fraud, which can carry a prison sentence of up to 20 years. An arraignment hasn’t been scheduled yet.