14 January 2020 - - US-based Foghorn Therapeutics Inc., a company advancing an entirely new class of medicines targeting diseases with genetically determined dependencies in the chromatin regulatory system, has appointed Scott Biller, Ph.D., to its board of directors, the company said.

Biller has more than 30 years of drug discovery and development experience at Agios Pharmaceuticals, Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Bristol Myers Squibb.

During his career, Biller contributed to the discovery and development of five approved medicines: JUXTAPID for familial hypercholesterolemia, ONGLYZA and FARXIGA for Type 2 diabetes, and IDHIFA and TIBSOVO for acute myeloid leukemia harboring an IDH2 and IDH1 mutation, respectively, as well as two new chemical entities that are currently in pivotal trials.

Biller earned a B.S. in chemistry at MIT, a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Caltech and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University.

Biller joins existing board members, including Doug Cole, M.D., Founder of Foghorn Therapeutics and Managing Partner of Flagship Pioneering; José Baselga, M.D., Ph.D., EVP of Research and Development, Oncology at AstraZeneca; Simba Gill, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Evelo Biosciences; Cigall Kadoch, Ph.D., Founder of Foghorn Therapeutics and Assistant Professor, Dana-Farber and Broad Institute; Adam Koppel, M.D., Ph.D., Managing director at Bain Capital; Michael Mendelsohn, M.D., chairman and Founder of Cardurion Pharmaceuticals; and Adrian Gottschalk.

Through its Gene Traffic Control Product Platform, Foghorn Therapeutics is discovering and developing an unprecedented class of medicines targeting diseases with genetically determined dependencies in the chromatin regulatory system.

The company, currently pre-clinical stage, is rapidly advancing over 10 programs across a wide range of cancers and is beginning to explore other diseases.

The chromatin regulatory system orchestrates the movement of molecules that turn genes on and off.

Disease dependencies associated with chromatin dysregulation are estimated to impact over 2.5m cancer patients in G7 countries and chromatin dysregulation is further implicated in neurological, autoimmune, and other serious diseases.

Foghorn's proprietary Gene Traffic Control Product Platform is based on the company's unique insights into the chromatin regulatory system and enables highly scalable drug discovery and development efforts.

Foghorn, a Flagship Pioneering company, was founded in 2016 by Cigall Kadoch, Ph.D., Gerald Crabtree, M.D., and Doug Cole, M.D., of Flagship Pioneering.