24 February 2021 - - Israel-based clinical-stage biotechnology company NovellusDx is establishing Fore Biotherapeutics US as its operating company in the United States to reflect its evolved biotech business model focused on matching patients with unaddressed tumor mutations with the right medicines in the clinic, the company said.

Using an integrated functional genomics and machine learning drug discovery engine, the company synthesizes a wide range of mutations across validated oncological targets and in-licenses clinical stage small molecule assets to develop for hyper-targeted populations.

As part of the strategic refocus, the company has appointed therapeutic and business development veterans Dieter Weinand and Usama Malik as the chairman of the board, and chief executive officer and a director, respectively.

The previous chief executive officer of the company, Dr. Michael Vidne, will continue to work with the company and has transitioned to chief business and strategy officer.

The company is in the process of establishing its headquarters and executive leadership team in the US The company also anticipates it will complete its Phase 1 dose-finding study in the coming months, which the company hopes to follow with a launch of a pivotal Phase 2 study of its clinical Class I/II BRAF inhibitor, PLX8394.

Dieter Weinand brings decades of general management and commercial leadership experience with executive management roles at Bayer, Sanofi, Pfizer, and BMS among others. He also sits on the boards of several high-profile biotech companies, including as chairman of the board of directors of Replimune.

Usama Malik also brings extensive experience from across the healthcare industry into his new role. He has led, grown and transformed pharma and biotech organizations in executive leadership roles, and has been an advisor to the boards and leadership teams of numerous Fortune 100 companies.

He most recently led the turnaround of Immunomedics, which was acquired by Gilead Sciences for USD 21bn.

NovellusDX is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on hyper-targeting clinical-stage precision oncology therapies to patients with unaddressed tumor mutations.

Lead asset PLX8394 is a Class I/II BRAF inhibitor with demonstrated clinical safety and early efficacy signals in an ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical trial. Leveraging a proprietary functional genomics platform that can screen a wide range of known mutations for cancer driving genes, the NovellusDX R and D team is optimizing drug development by identifying existing compounds with known clinical profiles and a clear path through clinical development to advance new medicines for patients without treatment options.