ImmunoGen Taps Former Shire Exec as New CEO
April 26, 2016
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
WALTHAM, Mass. -- Mark Enyedy, a former executive vice president at Shire Plc , will take over ImmunoGen, Inc. as the company’s next president and chief executive officer, the company announced this morning.
Enyedy will assume his new duties May 16, 2016. He succeeds Daniel Junius, who announced his retirement earlier this month. Although Junius is stepping down from his position atop Immunogen, he will maintain a seat on the company board of directors.
“I am pleased to be joining ImmunoGen at such an important time in the Company’s evolution and helping to build upon its leadership position in the exciting ADC field,” Enyedy said in a statement. “With a lead product in later-stage testing for ovarian cancer, a strong portfolio of earlier-stage candidates, and a productive technology platform, ImmunoGen is well-positioned for sustainable innovation in oncology and value creation for shareholders. I look forward to working with the company’s outstanding leadership team, dedicated employees, and global partners to develop and commercialize novel ADC therapies, which hold the potential to deliver better outcomes for cancer patients across an expanding range of indications.”
Stephen McCluski, chairman of Immunogen’s board, touted Enyedy’s leadership skills combined with a “deep experience building science-based oncology businesses,” makes him ideally suited to lead the company. Enyedy has spent more than 25 years in the biotechnology industry. While at Shire he led the company’s M&A and corporate planning functions. He also oversaw Shire’s pre-Phase III portfolio. Before Shire, he served as CEO of Proteostasis Therapeutics, Inc., as well as having served 15 years in various roles at Genzyme. During his tenure at Genzyme, Mr. Enyedy developed and executed the company’s strategy to enter the oncology market, overseeing the launch of two new products and managing a global business generating over $675 million in revenue with operations in more than 50 countries.
Immunogen’s stock dropped more than 6 percent following the announcement, falling from $9.15 per share to $8.53 per share this morning.
Immunogen saw a 135 percent growth in its stock last year, based in part on an experimental ovarian cancer treatment, mirvetuximab soravtansine, a novel folate receptor alpha, that has shown promising results in early trials.
Earlier this month, Immunogen announced the start of clinical testing of the company’s IMGN779 product candidate for the treatment of AML, a CD33-positive cancer. IMGN779 contains a CD33-targeting antibody—enabling it to bind to AML cells—with a cancer-killing agent. The drug is the first ADC to utilize one of ImmunoGen’s new family of indolino-benzodiazepine cancer-killing agents, which the company calls IGNs.
In February, Immunogen and Merck entered into a clinical research collaboration for the assessment of ImmunoGen’s mirvetuximab soravtansine in combination with Merck’s anti-PD-1 therapy, Keytruda, for the treatment of patients with FRa-positive ovarian cancer. Mirvetuximab soravtansine is an experimental ADC for FRa-positive cancers that has shown notable activity for FRa-positive ovarian cancer in early clinical testing.