Onyx brings in former Nuvelo boss to lead growing R&D unitSan Francisco Business Times - by Ron Leuty
Someone at ONYX must love Love
Former Nuvelo Inc. CEO Dr. Ted Love will head Onyx Pharmaceuticals’ growing research and development unit.
Love will oversee a growing cache of preclinical and clinical programs as well as regulatory affairs, safety, and quality assurance and control at Emeryville-based Onyx. That includes Onyx’s cancer-fighting proteasome inhibitors, which it picked up in the November acquisition of Proteolix Inc.
Proteolix’s proteasome inhibitor, named carfilzomib, is in a Phase IIb trial for relapsed, refractory multiple myeloma.
Dr. Michael Kauffman, who came to Onyx as part of the Proteolix deal, was named chief medical officer, reporting to Love. Kauffman had been interim chief medical officer and was chief medical officer at Proteolix and from 2002 to 2008 was president and CEO of Predix Pharmaceuticals Inc., now EPIX Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Love is Onyx’s first head of R&D since a restructuring about seven years ago. The company has focused on development and marketing of its cancer drug Nexavar with pharmaceutical giant Bayer but under CEO Dr. N. Anthony Coles it has gone the route of licensing and acquisition to deepen its portfolio of cancer drugs.
Onyx spent $92 million on R&D in the first nine months of last year, including half of the development costs for Nexavar, and $123.7 million for full-year 2008.
Coles called Love a “strategic thinker” with a track record of developing successful cancer therapies. “We were looking for someone with extraordinary leadership and deep R&D experience,” Coles said.
At Genentech Inc., for example, Love was vice president of product development and regulatory affairs, overseeing development of Herceptin and Rituxan, now two of Genentech’s top-selling drugs.
Love was CEO of San Carlos-based Nuvelo when its blood-thinning drug alfimeprase, a stroke treatment also aimed at improving catheter function, in December 2007 failed a mid-stage trial. Nuvelo also was developing cancer drugs.
Nuvelo in January 2009 completed a reverse merger with ARCA Biopharma Inc. of Broomfield, Colo., that took ARCA public and gave it access to abot $60 million in Nuvelo cash and securities.
rleuty@bizjournals.com / (415) 288-4939
