Former Millennium and FORUM Pharma CEO Resurfaces to Helm Massachusetts Biotech XTuit
March 8, 2017
By Mark Terry, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
Waltham, Mass.-based XTuit Pharmaceuticals announced today that Deborah Dunsire was stepping in as president, chief executive officer, and board member. She is replacing replacing interim chief executive officer Alan Crane, a partner with Polaris Partners.
Dunsire is well known within the biotech industry. She spent almost twenty years at Novartis and Millennium. She was the president and chief executive officer of Millennium for eight years. Millennium was acquired by Takeda in 2008 for $8.8 billion. She stayed on for five years after the acquisition, then left the company in May 2013. Two months later she took on the role of chief executive officer of Forum Pharmaceuticals.
Forum Pharmaceuticals was focused on Alzheimer’s and other neurological conditions. It had a drug in late-stage clinical trials when Dunsire took over the company. Ben Fidler, writing for Xconomy, writes, “Instead of having the typical syndicate of venture backers, it was mainly funded by financial giant Fidelity, thanks to former Fidelity CEO Ned Johnson’s passion and support for Alzheimer’s disease research. Forum had no need for deals or outside investors to survive. Nevertheless, Dunsire planned to find outside investors, and to shoot for an IPO.”
Unfortunately for everyone, Dunsire included, the company’s drug for Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia failed in late-stage trials. She left the company shortly afterwards and Forum closed its doors a short time later.
She intended to take time off, but that didn’t happen. “I got a call from Alan (Crane) in October,” Dunsire told John Carroll, with Endpoints News, “and he said, Dave (Mott, at NEA) and I were talking about this company.” They then had what Carroll describes as a “7-hour brainstorming session with Mass General’s Rakesh Jain, one of the three key scientists—with MIT’s prolific Robert Langer and Salk Professor Ronald Evans—who make up the brain trust at XTuit.”
“It was energizing and fun,” Dunsire told Carroll, “and it was interesting to learn about the science.”
XTuit focuses on developing drugs that are microenvironment-targeted. The key focus is on stromal cells. They are found in cancer tumors, and are associated with poor outcomes. XTuit believes that stroma impedes drugs from hitting their targets, and that this microenvironment “repels” immune cells. This would suggest that XTuit’s approach would fit into the immuno-oncology approach.
The company’s focus is on fibrosis. Carroll writes, “So the company is taking twin tracks, looking for drugs that can target stroma in tumors as a likely combo therapy and then separately as a treatment specifically for fibrosis.”
“We welcome Deborah’s deep experience and strategic business acumen to help build our vision and future for XTuit,” said Crane, who is also chairman of the board at XTuit. “Deborah’s exceptional track record of leadership and oncology expertise as well as a strong vision for building companies will service XTuit exceptionally well as we embark on the next stage of transforming leading-edge science into important new medicines.”
“I’ve run companies that have a lot of profit, companies that are just turning profitable, and companies that have tremendous resources behind [them],” Dunsire told Xconomy. “Now it’s time to learn something different.”
Dunsire and XTuit hope to have their first drug into the clinic by the first half of next year. The company is still determining which tumors types to target first. Once that’s determined, a timeline will be developed for new investments and growing the company’s staff, currently at 30 people, and expanding its pipeline.