Some thoughts on Rice.
Rice has an interesting career. “He served as Head of the Laboratory of Antiviral Drug Mechanisms and Manager of the HIV Clinical Interface Laboratory for the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health from 1992 to 1998. In this position, Dr. Rice directed the activities of several projects targeting new ways to treat HIV and other infectious diseases. From 1989 to 1992, he was professor of Pediatric Hematology and Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine, where he built a program to identify new molecular structures as antiviral targets”. So, he was in hematology/oncology, but it was not related to oncology. Then, from Aug 1998 to Aug 2003 he worked as a CEO of Achillion Pharmaceuticals, an anti-infective pharmaceutical company. Under his leadership no drug was approved. From 2003 to 2013 he served as a CEO of Cylene Pharmaceuticals. The company was working on oral CK2 protein kinase inhibitor, CX-4945, in patients with advanced solid tumors, or multiple myeloma. This drug is still in clinical trials, not even close to FDA approval. Their second drug was Quarfloxin, a selective binder for MYC GQ structure. Is it related to APTO-253? Anyway, later quarfloxin was discarded due to its poor bioavailability. Isn’t it a familiar theme? And from 2013 to the present, Rice has been a CEO of Lorus/Aptose Biosciences. The result of his work as a leader of Aptose is two failed drugs, APTO-253 and Luxeptinib. Point is that during his very long career in biotech industry as a CEO, Rice was not able to bring any drug to the market. I hope Tuspetinib is his last chance.
