Mnemo Therapeutics, a biotech working to refine and improve CAR-T cells, has tapped former Bayer EVP Robert LaCaze as its new CEO, effective May 1.
LaCaze wraps up more than six years at Bayer, where he most recently served as EVP and head of the German company’s strategic business unit for oncology. Prior to that, he spent more than 26 years at Bristol Myers Squibb, working his way up from the sales unit to senior vice president and head of product and portfolio strategy for worldwide commercialization.
Mnemo’s founding CEO Alain Maiore will stay on at the company as chief operating officer.
The appointment comes as Mnemo rides the momentum of a $90 million financing round announced in June 2021, which funded the development of its EnfiniT platform. In an interview with Fierce Biotech after the financing was announced, Maiore anticipated the company would be able to push two candidates into clinical trials by 2024.
The goal of the platform is to identify and hone in on new targets for CAR-T cells so that they’re more effective and persistent. Among those targets are “E-antigens,” which due to their creation between exons and transposable elements on DNA, exist both on the outside and inside of tumor cells. They’re also tumor-specific and thus possibly the target of adoptive T-cell therapies.
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While this marks the first time that LaCaze has stepped into the lead role at a small biotech, he comes equipped with experience assessing the promise of new CAR-T technologies, along with their challenges. While at Bayer, the company teamed up with Atara Biotherapeutics to license two of their CAR-T therapies aimed at mesothelin-expressing tumors including mesothelioma and non-small cell lung cancer. The phase 1 trial for one of those targets was paused last week after a death was reported among a patient treated in the study. The other target that Bayer licensed was unaffected as it pushes for approval to conduct human studies.