Mirati Therapeutics tapped David Meek, the former chief executive officer of Ipsen, as its new CEO. He replaces company founder Charles Baum.
Mirati Therapeutics tapped David Meek, the former chief executive officer of Ipsen, as its new CEO. He replaces company founder Charles Baum, who will continue to lead Mirati’s research and development efforts. Mirati
’s research and development include adagrasib, a KRASG12C inhibitor being assessed for patients with heavily pretreated colorectal cancer for that specific KRAS mutation, as well as non-small cell lung cancer.
This morning, Mirati announced that adagrasib alone and paired with cetuximab demonstrated significant clinical activity and broad disease control in these cancer patients. Data from the Phase I/II KRYSTAL–1 study was presented at the European Society of Medical Oncology Meeting. The study showed that of the evaluable patients who received adagrasib, patients saw a disease control rate of 87%. According to the company, the median progression-free survival was 5.6 months in all enrolled patients.
Patients who received adagrasib and cetuximab showed an investigator-assessed response rate of 43%, including two unconfirmed partial responses and a disease control rate of 100%.
The company said, adagrasib as a monotherapy and in combination with cetuximab was well-tolerated with a manageable safety profile.
Baum said the results presented at ESMO support additional research into the use of adagrasib in KRAS-mutated colon cancer. The data from the KRYSTAL-1 study supports the ongoing work in the Phase III KRYSTAL-10 study, which compares adagrasib plus cetuximab to standard-of-care chemotherapy in second-line KRASG12C-mutated colorectal cancer.
In addition to colorectal cancer, Mirati has been assessing adagrasib in lung cancer. The company plans to submit a New Drug Application to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for non-small cell lung cancer in the fourth quarter of this year. Baum said he is confident that Meek, who has broad oncology and commercial experience, will guide the company through the regulatory hurdles.
Meek said he was honored to lead Mirati through its next stage of growth. He touted Baum’s years of leading the company with what he called an “unrivaled passion for the science, people and most importantly, the patients.” He said Baum would continue to serve as the scientific backbone of Mirati.
“Mirati has an unprecedented opportunity as we transition from developing targeted treatments that transform the way cancer is treated, to also delivering them to meaningfully impact the lives of patients living with cancer. Our end-to-end innovative oncology portfolio includes two late-stage clinical assets, adagrasib and sitravatinib, and a promising discovery pipeline, which includes Mirati’s synthetic lethal PRMT5 inhibitor, MRTX1719, with an IND submission in the fourth quarter of this year,” Meek said in a statement.
Meek most recently served as president, CEO and board member of FerGene, focused on developing innovative gene therapy for bladder cancer. During his tenure as CEO at Ipsen, Meek guided the company through the expansion of its oncology portfolio in the U.S. and Europe and growing the research and development portfolio through internal and external innovation.
On Sept. 20, following the appointment of Meek as CEO and the ESMO data in colorectal and lung cancer, Mirati will hold an investor event. The company will discuss the data from the ESMO studies for adagrasib and data from ongoing studies of sitravatinib combined with nivolumab in patients with non-squamous NSCLC.
