Mersana Therapeutics Announces Appointment of Mohan Bala, Ph.D., as SVP, Strategic Product Planning & Program Leadership
October 25 2021 - 8:00AM
Mersana Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: MRSN), a clinical-stage
biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing a
pipeline of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) targeting cancers in
areas of high unmet medical need, today announced the appointment
of Mohan Bala, Ph.D., as SVP, Strategic Product Planning &
Program Leadership, effective Monday, October 25, 2021. Dr. Bala
will assume strategic product planning responsibilities from Brian
DeSchuytner who has been named SVP and Chief Financial Officer. Mr.
DeSchuytner will continue to lead finance, business development,
corporate strategy and investor relations and remain Mersana’s
principal financial officer.
“With over 20 years of clinical development and
commercialization experience, Mohan is a seasoned biopharmaceutical
executive who brings a deep expertise in overall asset strategy and
program management to the Mersana team. Mohan has overseen the
advancement of products through early, mid and late-stage clinical
development and has helped launch 7 oncology products globally. We
are delighted to have Mohan join the Mersana team and welcome his
valuable insight as we continue to advance the clinical development
of UpRi toward commercialization in ovarian cancer and build out
our maturing pipeline of innovative ADC candidates,” commented Anna
Protopapas, President and CEO of Mersana. “I would like to thank
Brian for his leadership of the Product Strategy function at
Mersana and his contributions towards building UpRi into a
foundational medicine for ovarian cancer with the UPLIFT, UP-NEXT,
and UPGRADE studies. As Mersana’s diversified first-in-class
pipeline grows, Brian will continue to ensure Mersana has the
resources, partnerships and infrastructure to deliver against our
goals.”
Mohan Bala, Ph.D., was most recently Chief Operating Officer at
Constellation Pharmaceuticals, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical
company focused on the discovery and development of novel
therapeutics to address patients with cancers associated with
abnormal gene expression. While at Constellation, Dr. Bala was
responsible for overall asset strategy and program management.
Prior to joining Constellation, Dr. Bala served as VP, Development
Program Lead at TESARO, where he led cross-functional teams to
advance two products to Phase 2 and one product to regulatory
filing. He has been involved in multiple successful BLA and MAAs,
including the filing of a companion diagnostic. Earlier in his
career, Dr. Bala held senior leadership roles at Sanofi,
GlaxoSmithKline and Centocor. Dr. Bala holds a Ph.D. in Management
Science and an M.B.A from the University of Chicago, and has
co-authored over 50 peer reviewed articles published in medical and
economics journals.
“I am delighted to join the Mersana team at such an exciting
point in the Company’s lifecycle, as we seek to bring UpRi to
ovarian cancer patients in desperate need of new therapeutic
options and advance our exciting ADC pipeline. I look forward to
partnering closely with the clinical development and product
strategy teams, and further supporting the Company’s mission to
discover and develop life-changing ADCs for patients fighting
cancer,” said Dr. Bala.
About Mersana TherapeuticsMersana
Therapeutics is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company using
its differentiated and proprietary ADC platforms to rapidly develop
novel ADCs with optimal efficacy, safety and tolerability to
meaningfully improve the lives of people fighting cancer. Mersana’s
lead product candidate, upifitamab rilsodotin (UpRi), is a
Dolaflexin ADC targeting NaPi2b and is being studied in UPLIFT, a
single-arm registration strategy in patients with
platinum-resistant ovarian cancer, as well as in UPGRADE, a Phase 1
umbrella study in combination with other ovarian cancer therapies.
UpRi is also being studied in the expansion portion of a Phase 1
proof-of-concept clinical study. XMT-1592, Mersana’s second ADC
product candidate targeting NaPi2b-expressing tumors, was created
using Mersana’s customizable and homogeneous Dolasynthen platform
and is in the dose escalation portion of a Phase 1 proof-of-concept
clinical study. The Company’s early-stage programs include
XMT-1660, a Dolasynthen ADC targeting B7-H4, as well as XMT-2056, a
STING-agonist ADC targeting a novel epitope of HER2, developed
using the Company’s Immunosynthen platform. In addition, multiple
partners are using Mersana’s Dolaflexin platform to advance their
ADC pipelines. The Company routinely posts information that may be
useful to investors on the “Investors and Media” section of our
website at www.mersana.com.
Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release
contains “forward-looking” statements within the meaning of federal
securities laws. These forward-looking statements are not
statements of historical facts and are based on management’s
beliefs and assumptions and on information currently available to
management. Forward-looking statements include information
concerning the Company’s business strategy and the design,
progression of its product candidates and timing of its clinical
trials, the ability of the single-arm UPLIFT cohort to enable
registration, expectations regarding future clinical trial results
based on data achieved to date, the sufficiency of the Company’s
cash on hand, and the potential for new or different business
development transactions with third parties. Forward-looking
statements generally can be identified by terms such as “aims,”
“anticipates,” “believes,” “contemplates,” “continues,” “could,”
“estimates,” “expects,” “goal,” “intends,” “may,” “on track,”
“opportunity,” “plans,” “poised for,” “possible,” “potential,”
“predicts,” “projects,” “promises to be,” “seeks,” “should,”
“target,” “will,” “would” or similar expressions and the negatives
of those terms. Forward-looking statements represent management’s
beliefs and assumptions only as of the date of this press release.
The Company’s operations involve risks and uncertainties, many of
which are outside its control, and any one of which, or combination
of which, could materially affect its results of operations and
whether the forward-looking statements ultimately prove to be
correct. Factors that may materially affect the Company’s results
of operations and whether these forward-looking statements prove to
be correct include, among other things, that preclinical testing or
early clinical results may not be predictive of the results or
success of ongoing or later preclinical or clinical studies, that
the identification, development and testing of the Company’s
product candidates and new platforms will take longer and/or cost
more than planned, and that our clinical studies may not be
initiated or completed on schedule, if at all, as well as those
listed in the Company’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed on
August 6, 2021, with the Securities and Exchange Commission
(“SEC”), and subsequent SEC filings. Except as required by law, the
Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking
statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could
differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking
statements, even if new information becomes available in the
future.
Contact:
Investor & Media ContactSarah Carmody,
617-844-8577scarmody@mersana.com
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