Gilead's Immunomedics CMO jumps to Aadi as the biotech eagerly awaits FDA decision for first drug

She got Trodelvy to the finish line and now Loretta Itri, M.D., hopes to get Aadi Bioscience's first drug to market. The Immunomedics chief medical officer is leaving the Gilead-owned company to take up the same post at Aadi. 

Itri joins as the biotech expects the FDA to decide the fate of Aadi's lead drug candidate Fyarro by Nov. 26. The drug targets advanced malignant PEComa, a rare subset of sarcomas that have no approved treatments. Fyarro is "based on similar technology" as Bristol Myers Squibb's Abraxane, an oncology treatment approved for various indications including advanced forms of pancreatic, non-small cell lung and breast cancers.

Aadi is also gearing up for registrational studies in TSC1 and TSC2 inactivating alterations. Alterations to these genes are found in multiple cancers, including bladder, kidney, breast, melanoma and liver, Aadi said. 

Itri will be pivotal to these trials given her recent experience bringing Trodelvy to the finish line. The drug got its first conditional approval in triple-negative breast cancer in April 2020, the full nod in April 2021 and a bladder cancer green light the same month.

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Gilead acquired Immunomedics for $21 billion last year. Trodelvy banked $89 million for Gilead in the second quarter.

The CMO is not the first Immunomedics executive to jump ship to Aadi. The Los Angeles biotech previously beefed up its C-suite with the addition of Chief Operating Officer Brendan Delaney last month. Delaney was the commercial leader at Constellation Pharmaceuticals for less than a year after holding the chief commercial officer post at Immunomedics for more than three years.

The two leaders join Aadi in a post-Aerpio merger chapter for the biotech. The two companies joined forces in August with a $155 million private investment. Aerpio has struggled as a penny stock after missing the mark on its lead eye drug candidate in May 2019.