CAMBRIDGE, Mass.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–FogPharma, a biopharmaceutical company committed to transforming the lives of patients through a new precision medicine approach widely applicable to important and challenging intracellular targets, today announced that Mathai Mammen, M.D., Ph.D., will join the company as chairman, president and chief executive officer. Dr. Mammen brings significant global R&D and corporate leadership experience to FogPharma, having most recently served as executive vice president, pharmaceuticals, R&D, at Johnson & Johnson. Prior to that, Dr. Mammen served in senior R&D roles at Merck, Inc., having begun his career as founder and head of R&D at Theravance, Inc. Dr. Mammen will serve as an advisor to FogPharma beginning immediately and will assume his position as chairman, president and chief executive officer in June 2023. FogPharma founder Gregory Verdine, Ph.D., will transition from his current role as chairman and chief executive officer to vice chairman on the company’s board of directors.
“Mathai is a world-renowned innovator in drug discovery, development and company building who has created great teams, businesses and numerous important medicines over 25 years in small and large pharma. He brings this wealth of experience to FogPharma and we are thrilled to welcome him as our new chairman, president and chief executive officer,” said Dr. Verdine. “I am extremely excited to collaborate with Mathai as he takes over the reins of the company. This is the perfect time to transition FogPharma’s leadership as we prepare to advance our first development candidate, FOG-001, a first-and-only-in-class direct TCF-blocking β-catenin inhibitor, into clinical development for cancer in 2023.”
“I could not be more excited to join the talented FogPharma team to lead the company into its next chapter and beyond as we aim to create a highly modern and differentiated pharmaceutical company,” said Dr. Mammen. “FogPharma is based originally on ground-breaking drug discovery technology invented by Greg Verdine and his research team at Harvard University, and subsequently advanced and reduced to practice at FogPharma. The company’s Helicon™ therapeutics offer a general solution to otherwise undruggable protein-protein interactions inside a cell, much as monoclonal antibodies offer a general solution to protein-protein interactions outside a cell. This approach is an excellent foundation upon which to build a company that has the potential to make a profound impact on human health, and keep doing so indefinitely.”
Dr. Mammen was most recently on the Executive Committee at Johnson & Johnson, responsible for the pharmaceutical R&D organization, and spearheaded a significant evolution of Janssen’s R&D, one of the largest R&D organizations in the world. He was a key leader that shaped and drove Johnson & Johnson’s bold foray into COVID vaccines and helped drive Janssen’s substantial growth to become one of the top pharmaceutical companies globally. He led his team to global approvals of eight new medicines including Tremfya™, Darzalex Faspro™, Balversa™, Carvykti™, Rybrevant™, Ponvory™, Spravato™ and Tecvayli™, with many additional global approvals for expanded indications of marketed products. A central pillar to the strategy was data science, coupling recent revolutionary advances in data, compute and algorithmic approaches to every aspect of discovering and developing medicines. Under his leadership, Janssen R&D executed 40+ acquisitions and licenses and 350+ strategic partnerships and collaborations.
Prior to joining Johnson & Johnson, he served as senior vice president at Merck, responsible for multiple research areas including cardiovascular, metabolic and renal diseases, immunology, oncology and immuno-oncology. Before Merck, Dr. Mammen led R&D at Theravance, Inc., a company he co-founded out of graduate school based on his work at Harvard University with Dr. George Whitesides. Under his leadership, Theravance advanced a robust pipeline of multiple development-stage compounds resulting in five approved pharmaceutical products, and separated into two companies: Theravance Biopharma, Inc. and Innoviva, Inc. Dr. Mammen also currently serves on the board of directors of 10x Genomics, Inc.
Dr. Mammen has authored more than 150 peer-reviewed journal publications, posters and patents. He received his M.D. from the Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology HST program and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University.
About FogPharma®
FogPharma is a biopharmaceutical company pioneering the discovery and development of the Helicon™ therapeutics, which are small proteins capable of efficient cell-entry and modulating protein-protein interactions that may otherwise be challenging to drug. Through this novel modality, FogPharma aims to address the limitations of existing drug classes and achieve universal druggability – a world where no targets are off-limits to new medicines. Spun out of Harvard University by pioneering academic scientist and successful biotech company builder Dr. Gregory Verdine, FogPharma is advancing a broad pipeline of Helicon therapeutics against important and biologically validated cancer targets that have remained elusive to other approaches, with the goal of providing new targeted treatment options for significant cancer patient populations. In November 2022, FogPharma completed a $178 million Series D financing and has raised more than $360 million to date from leading life sciences investors. FogPharma is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. For more information, please visit www.fogpharma.com.
