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Tocagen Appoints Mohamed Ladha as Vice President to Establish Commercial Organization
PR Newswire
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 24, 2018
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 24, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Tocagen Inc. (TOCA) , a clinical-stage, cancer-selective gene therapy company, today announced the appointment of Mohamed Ladha as vice president, head of commercial. Mr. Ladha will build, oversee and execute the global commercial strategies for Tocagen's (TOCA) oncology products upon regulatory approval in the United States and other key markets.
"Mohamed's extensive experience and successful track record in developing and commercializing oncology products such as Temodar(R) for brain cancer will be invaluable as we advance towards the potential global commercialization of Toca 511 & Toca FC," said Marty Duvall, chief executive officer of Tocagen (TOCA).
Mr. Ladha has over 23 years of experience in the fields of oncology and immunology including leading product development and marketing teams at pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. He has commercialized eight products for a variety of oncology indications, including TEMODAR(R) (temozolomide, Schering-Plough/Merck) for glioblastoma, OncoTICE(R) (BCG, Schering Plough/Merck) for bladder cancer, and ALUNBRIG(R) (brigatinib, ARIAD/Takeda) for lung cancer, as well as medicines for autoimmune diseases. Most recently he led the U.S. lung cancer portfolio at Takeda Oncology where he was responsible for the launch and commercialization of ALUNBRIG and subsequent pipeline products. Prior to this, Mr. Ladha led the U.S. and global lung cancer portfolio at ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, part of Takeda Oncology since early 2017. Previously, Mr. Ladha was the head of global and U.S. biosimilars at Hospira/Pfizer where he oversaw the launch and commercialization of three biosimilars in oncology and autoimmune diseases. He also held roles in oncology field sales and later led oncology marketing and product commercial development at Schering-Plough and then Merck for nine years. Prior to joining industry, Mr. Ladha spent five years as a researcher at Harvard Medical School's Dana- Farber Cancer Institute and co-authored several scientific publications on his cancer research in areas of RAS driven signal transduction pathway and retinoblastoma and cyclin-dependent cell cycle mechanisms. Mr. Ladha received a master's of public administration in healthcare/international development from Harvard University and a master's of business administration in marketing and finance from Northwestern University.
"With a highly differentiated cancer-selective gene therapy platform, provocative clinical data for Toca 511 & Toca FC including six complete and durable responses in patients with recurrent brain cancer, and a fully enrolled pivotal Phase 3 trial, I am eager to join Tocagen's (TOCA) team and build the company's commercial capabilities for the launch and commercialization of Toca 511 & Toca FC, following approval," said Mr. Ladha. "If the Toca 5 trial results are positive, Toca 511 & Toca FC would be the first therapeutic to show a treatment benefit in a randomized trial in patients with recurrent high grade glioma. That's a powerful proposition for patients with brain cancer, especially in a therapeutic area that has lacked any major treatment advances for almost two decades."
About Tocagen Inc. (TOCA)
Tocagen (TOCA) is a clinical-stage, cancer-selective gene therapy company developing first-in-class, broadly applicable product candidates designed to activate a patient's immune system against their own cancer. Tocagen's (TOCA) lead investigational product candidate, Toca 511 & Toca FC, is under evaluation in a pivotal Phase 3 trial for recurrent high grade glioma (HGG), a disease with significant unmet medical need. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Toca 511 & Toca FC Breakthrough Therapy Designation for the treatment of recurrent HGG and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has granted Toca 511 PRIME (PRIority MEdicines) designation for the treatment of glioma. For more information about Tocagen (TOCA), visit www.tocagen.com.
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