Ikena Oncology, Inc. Appoints Dr. Maria Koehler to Its Board of Directors
April 15, 2021 at 07:00 am EDT
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Ikena Oncology, Inc. announced the appointment of Maria Koehler, M.D., Ph.D. to its Board of Directors. Dr. Koehler is a board-certified hematologist and oncologist with more than 20 years of pharmaceutical and biotech oncology experience in clinical development, including senior roles at Pfizer where she led the development of Ibrance® (palbociclib) and contributed to the strategic direction of the oncology portfolio. Dr. Koehler brings deep experience in both early drug development and bringing new drugs to global markets, having developed strategies for product candidates at all stages of development. Dr. Koehler currently serves as the Chief Medical Officer at Repare Therapeutics, where she leads clinical strategy and oversees all operations. Dr. Koehler joined Repare from Bicycle Therapeutics where she was Chief Medical Officer. Prior to Bicycle, she was Vice President of Strategy, Innovation and Collaborations for the Oncology Business Unit at Pfizer. Prior to Pfizer, she served in leadership roles at GlaxoSmithKline and at AstraZeneca. She is board certified in hematology and oncology. She began her career as a practicing physician and served as the clinical director of Bone Marrow Transplantation at University Hospital in Pittsburgh as well as the director of the Bone Marrow Transplant Program and associate professor at St. Christopher’s Hospital in Philadelphia. Dr. Koehler received her M.D. and Ph.D. from the Silesian Medical School in Poland and has co-authored over 150 publications, book chapters, and patents.
Ikena Oncology, Inc. is a targeted oncology company. The Company is focused on developing differentiated therapies for patients in need that target nodes of cancer growth, spread, and therapeutic resistance in the Hippo and RAS onco-signaling network. The Company's lead targeted oncology program, IK-930, is a transcriptional enhanced associate domain 1 (TEAD1) selective Hippo pathway inhibitor, a known tumor suppressor pathway that also drives resistance to multiple targeted therapies. The Company's second clinical-stage program targets the RAS signaling pathway with IK-595, a novel MEK-RAF molecular glue. It has IK-175 aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) antagonist program that completed Phase 1 clinical trial. Its partnering portfolio also includes several other immune oncology programs that are available for potential sale or outlicensing, including PY314, a Phase 2 ready TREM2 antagonist, PY159, a Phase 2 ready TREM1 antagonist, and PY265, an IND-ready MARCO antagonist.