Lengo Therapeutics Announces Expansion of its Executive Leadership Team with Appointments in R&D, CMC and Finance

• Company appoints Dr. Paul Pearson as Chief of Development, Dr. Eric Gruff as Senior Vice President (SVP) of CMC and Ingrid Simms as SVP and Principal Accounting Officer

• Their decades of experience bring proven leadership to successfully guide R&D, CMC and finance, as Lengo’s lead drug candidate advances into clinical trials

• Dr. Pearson and Dr. Gruff previously worked together on the development of CALQUENCE® (acalabrutinib), a covalent oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor developed by Acerta (acquired by AstraZeneca)

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--#cancer--Lengo Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel precision medicines targeting driver mutations in oncology, today announced the expansion of the Company’s executive management team.

Paul Pearson, Ph.D., is Chief of Development at Lengo Therapeutics. He has over 30 years of experience and has advised biopharmaceutical companies and the National Institutes of Health in the areas of drug discovery, pharmacokinetics, drug metabolism and clinical pharmacology. Previously, he served as Global Head of Pharmacokinetics and Drug Metabolism at Amgen, the world’s largest biotechnology company. Prior to Amgen, Paul served as Executive Director of Preclinical Drug Metabolism at Merck Research Laboratories. He also worked with Acerta (acquired by AstraZeneca) and conducted the IND-enabling work and IND submission for CALQUENCE® (acalabrutinib), a covalent oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor. He has held key positions at the Upjohn Company and has made major contributions to approvals of therapeutic agents to treat cancer and infectious diseases. Paul is the editor of the Handbook of Drug Metabolism (2019) and has published extensively in the field. He received his Pharmacy degree and Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Aston University, England, and completed post-doctoral training at the University of Washington.

Eric Gruff, Ph.D., is SVP of CMC at Lengo Therapeutics. With nearly 30 years of experience in drug development, Eric has specific expertise in regulatory affairs, chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC), and product development. Eric spent 11 years with Pfizer’s La Jolla Laboratories (formerly Agouron Pharmaceuticals) in a variety of leadership roles in pharmaceutical development and project management. Prior to Pfizer, he held management positions at Molecular Biosystems, and has served as an independent CMC and regulatory consultant. Eric has played a role in the development of 18 now-approved drugs and biologics, including CALQUENCE® (acalabrutinib), a covalent oral Bruton's tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor developed by Acerta (acquired by AstraZeneca). Eric received a B.S. in Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from SUNY Stony Brook. Eric also holds an Executive MBA degree from San Diego State University. He spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla. He is a member of RAPS, PDA and ACS.

Ingrid Simms is SVP and Principal Accounting Officer at Lengo Therapeutics. She brings more than 30 years of extensive experience as an accomplished finance leader with the most recent 20 years focused on life sciences. Most recently, she was VP of Finance and Principal Accounting Officer at VelosBio, Inc. before its acquisition by Merck for $2.75 billion. Prior to VelosBio, she was a VP Finance at Alder BioPharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ALDR) acquired by Lundbeck, and a Senior Director of Finance at Marina Biotech. She has also held senior leadership roles at Evergreen Pharmaceuticals, Northwest Division of Omnicare, Inc. (acquired by CVS), and various technology companies. She started her career as an auditor at Deloitte & Touche. She received a B.S. in Economics, with major in Accounting from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from the University of Washington, Michael G. Foster School of Business and is a licensed C.P.A. in the state of Washington.

“I am delighted to welcome this group of talented executives with decades of experience in their respective fields. Their proven track record of success in the life sciences industry in the areas of manufacturing, R&D and finance, is precisely what we need as we advance our pipeline of novel precision therapeutics targeting driver mutations in oncology into the clinic,” said Enoch Kariuki, Pharm.D., Chief Executive Officer at Lengo Therapeutics. “I look forward to working with Paul, Eric and Ingrid, and the rest of the senior management and scientific teams to help bring new innovative therapies to cancer patients.”

About Lengo Therapeutics

Lengo Therapeutics is a biopharmaceutical company committed to developing novel, precision medicines targeting driver mutations in oncology. Lengo has assembled a team of scientists and industry leaders with extensive expertise in kinase biology, covalent drug-target technology and oncology drug development. The company’s vision is to develop a pipeline of investigational candidates that can offer benefit to patients with cancers harboring driver mutations. Lengo Therapeutics is based in San Diego. For more information, please visit www.lengotx.com.

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Kimberly Ha
KKH Advisors
917-291-5744
kimberly.ha@kkhadvisors.com