CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Exo Therapeutics, Inc., a small molecule drug discovery and development company with a pioneering technology to address intractable pharmaceutical targets, today announced the appointment of Nagesh Mahanthappa, PhD, to the company’s Board of Directors (BOD) and Charles W. Roberts, MD, PhD, to the company’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).
“I am delighted to welcome Dr. Mahanthappa and Dr. Roberts to the team,” said Michael Bruce, PhD, CEO of Exo Therapeutics. “Dr. Mahanthappa’s expertise creating and building early-stage companies and therapeutics and Dr. Robert’s deep experience as a clinician and researcher into critical oncologic pathways will serve as crucial resources to Exo as we transition our programs from discovery into clinical studies.”
“I am excited to join Exo’s board in the early stages of the company’s development,” said Dr. Mahanthappa. “Exosites are a novel approach to medicines discovery and have demonstrated the ability to access traditionally challenging targets. I look forward to working with the passionate Exo team on achieving the enormous potential of this approach and capturing the opportunity in challenging but important therapeutic targets.”
“Oncology research on potentially therapeutically relevant targets has been greatly limited due to druggability issues such as inaccessibility, competitive binding and off-target activity. Exosites are compelling because they may enable us to significantly expand the diversity of targets that we can pursue in drug discovery,” said Dr. Roberts. “I look forward to working with the Exo team and other SAB members to rapidly advance the company’s science and pipeline.”
Dr. Mahanthappa was most recently the founding employee, President and CEO of Scholar Rock, Inc. During his eight-year tenure at Scholar Rock, Dr. Mahanthappa took the company public and led two distinct drug candidates into clinical testing. Prior to Scholar Rock, he held scientific, strategic and corporate development roles at Avila and Alnylam. He completed his post-doctoral training at The Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center and Harvard Medical School after receiving his PhD in Neurobiology from the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Mahanthappa received his B.A. in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Colorado, and his M.B.A. from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Management at Babson College.
Dr. Roberts currently serves as the Director of the St. Jude Comprehensive Cancer Center and as an Executive Vice President and a full member in the Department of Oncology of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Dr. Roberts received his medical and doctoral degrees from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He completed his pediatric residency and pediatric hematology/oncology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Roberts has been elected to the Society for Pediatric Research, American Society of Clinical Investigation and American Pediatric Society.
Exo’s experienced, collaborative and dedicated team is passionate about pioneering exosite science to unlock breakthrough therapeutics. Dr. Mahanthappa joins Michael Bruce, PhD, Aaron Nelson, MD, PhD, of Novartis Venture Fund, and Tom Cahill, MD, PhD, of Newpath Partners on Exo’s BOD. Dr. Roberts joins Professor Stuart Schreiber of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Professor Ben Cravatt, PhD, of the Scripps Research Institute, and Professor Ben Ebert, MD, PhD, of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute on Exo’s SAB.
About Exo Therapeutics
Exo Therapeutics is a small molecule drug discovery and development company with a pioneering technology to address intractable pharmaceutical targets. By leveraging the company’s ExoSightTM platform, Exo is developing a deep pipeline of potent drug candidates that bind exosites, distal and unique binding pockets that have the potential to reprogram enzyme activity for precise and robust therapeutic effect. Through this specific and selective approach to challenging targets, the company's team of world-class researchers is unlocking breakthrough therapeutics in oncology, inflammation and a broad range of other diseases. For more information, visit www.exo-therapeutics.com.
