Verastem, Inc. Appoints Frank Neumann as Chief Medical Officer
January 06, 2021 at 09:13 am EST
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Verastem, Inc. announced the appointment of industry veteran Frank Neumann, M.D., Ph.D., as Chief Medical Officer to oversee the Company’s clinical and regulatory strategy and Medical Affairs team. Dr. Neumann joins Verastem from bluebird bio where he served as VP, Head of Oncology Clinical Research, Clinical Research Development. In this role, he was responsible for planning and execution of oncology research asset strategies from pre-clinical to Investigational New Drug Application (IND) submissions, across both solid tumor and hematological indications. He has also held various leadership roles at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, including global clinical lead for ICLUSIG® (ponatinib) and medical team lead for NINLARO® (ixazomib). He served as clinical development head for all of Takeda’s cell therapy approaches globally from POC to Phase 1 and was also responsible for various U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) interactions for Takeda’s programs. Earlier in his career, Dr. Neumann was a member of the oncology medical teams at AstraZeneca and Sanofi-Aventis and was a research scholar at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Neumann received his medical degree from the Heinrich-Heine University in Duesseldorf, Germany and his Ph.D. from the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelm University in Bonn, Germany. He is Board-Certified in Hematology/Oncology, Internal Medicine, and Palliative Care Medicine and is currently an assistant professor at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, Germany.
Verastem, Inc. is a late-stage development biopharmaceutical company. The Company's pipeline is focused on anticancer agents that inhibit critical signaling pathways in cancer that promote cancer cell survival and tumor growth, particularly rapidly accelerated fibrosarcoma (RAF)/mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK) inhibition and focal adhesion kinase (FAK) inhibition. The Companyâs advanced product candidates, avutometinib and defactinib, are being investigated in both preclinical and clinical studies for the treatment of various solid tumors, including low-grade serous ovarian cancer (LGSOC), non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), pancreatic cancer, colorectal cancer (CRC), and melanoma. Avutometinib is an orally available small molecule RAF/MEK clamp that inhibits the ras sarcoma (RAS)/RAF/MEK, ERK mitogen activated pathway kinase (MAPK) pathway. Defactinib is an oral small molecule inhibitor of FAK and proline-rich tyrosine kinase (PYK2).