Adaptimmune announced several changes to its executive leadership team. Perhaps the biggest news is that Rafael Amado, president of R&D, is leaving the company “to pursue other opportunities.”
Adaptimmune, based in Philadelphia and Oxfordshire, UK, announced several changes to its executive leadership team. Perhaps the biggest news is that Rafael Amado, president of R&D, is leaving the company on August 12 “to pursue other opportunities.”
The company plans to recruit a chief medical officer to fill the clinical aspects of Amado’s responsibilities. Amada joined the company in 2015 as the chief medical officer, shifting over to president of R&D last year. As such, he oversaw all research and clinical activities. He previously worked at Amgen and GlaxoSmithKline.
It was announced recently that James Noble was retiring as chief executive officer. Beginning on September 1, the new chief executive will be Adrian Rawcliffe, who is currently the chief financial officer.
The result of these shifts is the company will need to fill both a chief medical officer and chief financial officer position. In addition, Adaptimmune announced that John Lunger, previously senior vice president Manufacturing and Supply Chain, was promoted to the Executive Team as chief patient supply officer. His duties will be to continue expanding the company’s manufacturing and supply chain organization. Before joining Adaptimmune in 2017, Lunger was head of Supply Chain and Commercial Product Supply at Merrimack Pharmaceuticals.
The new Executive Team will be made up of Adrian Rawcliffe as chief executive officer, Bill Bertrand as chief operating officer, Helen Tayton-Martin as chief business officer and co-founder, and John Lunger as chief patient supply officer.
“In the last two weeks, we have announced the start of three new clinical trials, illustrating our increased focus on rapid execution,” Rawcliffe stated. “We are also announcing changes to our Executive Team. The role of manufacturing and supply chain in meeting our obligations to patients is critical as we prepare to launch a SPEAR T-cell therapy in 2022.”
The company also announced its second-quarter financials today. As the company is essentially pre-revenue, there was only $0.2 million in revenue to report for both the three and six months ended June 30, 2019, compared to $9 million and $17.2 million for the same periods last year. The reason for this is the beginning of development on the third target under a collaboration and license deal with GlaxoSmithKline.
R&D expenses for the three and six months period were $25.5 million and $47.5 million, respectively. The company has cash and cash equivalents of $34.6 million and total liquidity of $133.4 million.
“I have spent twenty years in the field of T-cell receptors and am convinced that they will have an important role in treating patients,” stated outgoing chief executive Noble. “We have already seen compelling data in sarcoma with ADP-A2M4 and have recently started a trial with a next-generation SPEAR T-cell and a combination trial with low-dose radiation to improve the depth and durability of responses. It is my final pleasure as CEO to be handing over to Adrian. I know that he will do an excellent job in taking the company through its next evolution towards commercialization. The changes that he is already introducing and the plans for the future will bring energy and focus to the tasks ahead, accelerating execution across the company.”
Rawcliffe, the incoming chief executive, responded, “Looking forward, I intend to further focus the company on increasing the pace of execution, which has already enabled us to initiate our first late-stage trial: SPEARHEAD-1, our first next-gen trial: SURPASS, and the low-dose radiation sub-study in recent weeks. In addition, we will strengthen our capabilities to be ready to launch our first product in 2022. Finally, we intend to leverage the state-of-the-art integrated capabilities that we have built in research, development and supply, to apply them in cell therapy more broadly.”
