Ex­clu­sive: Affi­ni-T taps Sanofi alum to lead hunt for part­ner­ships; Alk­er­mes locks in CEO for on­col­o­gy spin­out

Affi­ni-T is look­ing for a part­ner as its KRAS-tar­get­ing T cell re­cep­tor ther­a­pies near the clin­ic — and it’s bring­ing on a Sanofi vet­er­an to lead the way.

The com­pa­ny on Fri­day an­nounced its ap­point­ment of Thamin­da Ra­manayake as chief busi­ness of­fi­cer, who pre­vi­ous­ly served as VP and glob­al head of busi­ness de­vel­op­ment, on­col­o­gy at Sanofi. Affi­ni-T is an­tic­i­pat­ing IND fil­ings by the end of this year for the KRAS G12V pro­grams AFNT-111 and AFNT-211, and as Ra­manayake said, “There is no bet­ter time to think about part­ner­ships.”

KRAS is a pro­tein reg­u­lat­ing how cells grow and di­vide, and mu­ta­tions can cause the pro­tein to get stuck in the “on” po­si­tion, trig­ger­ing un­con­trolled ma­lig­nant cell growth. The first gen­er­a­tion of KRAS in­hibitors, in­clud­ing Am­gen’s Lumakras (so­tora­sib) and Mi­rati’s Kraza­ti (ada­gra­sib), tar­get a mu­ta­tion called G12C to lock the pro­tein in “off” mode.

“We think there’s an op­por­tu­ni­ty here to ex­pand be­yond G12C,” Affi­ni-T CEO Jak Knowles said on Thurs­day. Affi­ni-T was fea­tured in last year’s End­points 11 list of top pri­vate biotechs.

Ra­manayake helped shape the on­col­o­gy busi­ness strat­e­gy at Sanofi, and be­fore that served as se­nior di­rec­tor of BD and strat­e­gy at Bio­Marin and glob­al trans­ac­tions lead at Am­gen. He called his path a “windy road,” adding that at one point he con­sid­ered a ca­reer in re­search, but de­cid­ed against it be­cause it was “too far from the pa­tient.” BD, he added, is the right spot “if you’re pas­sion­ate about in­no­va­tion, if you’re pas­sion­ate about pa­tient care.”

“The old way of drug dis­cov­ery and de­vel­op­ment is not go­ing to be suc­cess­ful when it comes to on­col­o­gy,” Ra­manayake said. “You have to part­ner, you have to work to­geth­er.”

— Nicole De­Feud­is

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER