Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Announces Management Changes
January 28, 2019 at 06:30 am EST
Share
Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced the appointment of Linda S. Grais, M.D., J.D., to the Company's Board of Directors and Mehrdad Mobasher, M.D., M.P.H., as Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, effective immediately. Dr. Grais has more than 20 years of experience with emerging companies in the biopharmaceutical industry. As a member of Corvus' Board of Directors, she is replacing Peter Moldt, Ph.D., who has served as a director since January 2015 and resigned his position. Dr. Mobasher, a board-certified medical oncologist, joins Corvus from Genentech/Roche, where he spent more than eight years in hematology/oncology drug development, including holding the position of Venetoclax Global Development Team Leader and Global Clinical Leader. At Corvus, Dr. Mobasher will oversee the Company's pipeline of precisely-targeted investigational oncology therapies. Dr. Mobasher joined Genentech in 2010 and has held several positions of increasing responsibility. Most recently, he was a Group Medical Director and Venetoclax Development Lead, where he oversaw and led the strategy for the global development of venetoclax with several phase 1, 2, and 3 clinical trials in numerous hematologic cancers, as well as solid tumors. Dr. Mobasher led the clinical development efforts for venetoclax, a novel drug through four successful Breakthrough Therapy designations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and three approvals granted under FDA's priority review, two of which were under accelerated approval. Venetoclax is approved in more than 50 countries for the treatment of several types of hematologic malignancies. He also was an adjunct clinical faculty member in the Division of Medical Oncology at Stanford University.
Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. The Company is focused on the development of ITK inhibition as a new approach to immunotherapy for a range of cancer and immune diseases. Its lead product candidate is soquelitinib, a selective, covalent inhibitor of ITK (interleukin 2 inducible T cell kinase) and is in a multi-center Phase 1/1b clinical trial in patients with various recurrent, malignant T cell lymphomas. Soquelitinib is designed to inhibit the proliferation of certain malignant T cells. Its second product candidate, ciforadenant, is an oral, small molecule antagonist of the A2A receptor for adenosine designed to disable a tumorâs ability to subvert attack by the immune system by blocking the binding of immunosuppressive adenosine in the tumor microenvironment to the A2A receptor. The Companyâs third product candidate is mupadolimab, a humanized monoclonal antibody that is designed to react with a specific site on CD73.