MENLO PARK, Calif., March 20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Forty Seven Inc., a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company announced today that Mark A. McCamish, M.D., Ph.D., will join the company on May 1 as President and CEO. 

Dr. McCamish, who was most recently Global Head of Biopharmaceutical Development at Sandoz Inc., succeeds the founding CEO, Jonathan MacQuitty, Ph.D. Dr. MacQuitty, who is now a Venture Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners, will remain on the company's Board of Directors.

"Forty Seven has made unprecedented progress to date based on the remarkable science initiated by the world-class efforts of Dr. Irv Weissman and Dr. Ravi Majeti and their combined team at Stanford University. In addition, Jonathan MacQuitty has assembled an amazing team at the company," said Dr. McCamish. "Forty Seven's technology provides a unique opportunity to harness the power of the innate immune system to help patients defeat their own cancer."

Jonathan MacQuitty said, "Mark has demonstrated exceptional leadership capabilities, as well as a unique combination of late-phase biological drug development, scientific understanding, and a passion for patient benefit that will lead Forty Seven into the future."

Mark has been an executive at several companies including Abbott Labs, Amgen, and PDL Biopharma. Most recently he helped pioneer global biosimilar development at Novartis' Sandoz division. Mark led the Sandoz team at the first ever US FDA Oncology Drug Advisory Committee evaluation of a biosimilar (filgrastim) resulting in a unanimous endorsement and followed that by obtaining a unanimous endorsement of Sandoz' second US biosimilar (etanercept) by the US FDA Arthritis Advisory Committee.  Under his guidance, Sandoz Biopharmaceuticals Development has emerged as a leader in the field having filed several BLA's through September 2016, when Mark retired from Sandoz.

About Forty Seven Inc.

Forty Seven Inc. is a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company that is developing therapies licensed from Stanford University targeting cancer immune evasion pathways. The lead program Hu5F9-G4 is a monoclonal antibody against the CD47 receptor, a "don't eat me" signal that cancer cells commandeer to avoid being ingested by the immune system. This antibody is currently being evaluated in four Phase 1 clinical studies in the US and the UK in patients with solid tumors or cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL), acute myeloid leukemia (AML), non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) and colorectal carcinoma (CRC).

Forty Seven is located at 1490 O'Brien Drive, Suite A, Menlo Park, CA 94025, U.S.A.

 

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SOURCE Forty Seven Inc.

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