CAMBRIDGE, Mass., May 02, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Codiak BioSciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CDAK), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering the development of exosome-based therapeutics as a new class of medicines, today announced the appointment of David Mauro, M.D., Ph.D., a veteran oncology and immunotherapy drug developer, as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Mauro will provide leadership and expertise for Codiak’s pipeline of clinical development programs through early-stage trials to global regulatory submissions and joins the company’s Executive Leadership Team reporting to Douglas E. Williams, Ph.D., President and CEO.
“We have been fortunate to work with David since late last year in an advisory capacity and are delighted to welcome him as Codiak’s Chief Medical Officer, particularly now that we are on the cusp of bringing our third candidate into the clinic and approaching key inflection points in our two ongoing clinical trials,” said Dr. Williams. “David’s vast experience bringing biologic and small molecule candidates through all stages of development to regulatory submission will be tremendously valuable to our clinical organization as we design the next-stage and future registration-enabling trials to advance exosome-based therapies as a promising new therapeutic modality.”
Dr. Mauro brings more than 20 years of oncology drug development experience to Codiak, including directing translational, early- and late-stage development for more than 25 Investigational New Drug candidates in the past decade. Most recently, he served as chief medical officer of Prelude Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing targeted small molecule therapeutics for cancer. There, Dr. Mauro oversaw all aspects of clinical development of five candidates, including clinical operations, clinical pharmacology, translational, statistics and regulatory affairs. Prior positions include chief medical officer roles at two oncology immunotherapy companies: Advaxis Immunotherapies and Checkmate Pharmaceuticals, where he spent four years contributing to the development of the company’s virus-like particle (VLP) platform for immunotherapy, which contributed to the company’s recent acquisition by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Earlier in his career, Dr. Mauro held positions of increasing responsibility within the clinical and medical affairs teams at Merck, Bristol Myers Squibb and Becton Dickinson. A pharmacologist by training, Dr. Mauro earned a B.S. in biochemistry from Cornell University, an M.D./Ph.D. from Temple University and completed his residency in anatomic pathology at the National Institutes of Health’s National Cancer Institute.
“I believe that the field of immunotherapy has never been more exciting or promising in terms of the potential to create truly innovative means of treating intractable forms of cancer and other diseases,” said Dr. Mauro. “Codiak is at the forefront of this with a modality and engineering platform that has conceivably broad applications and the initial clinical data support the foundational hypothesis that, by virtue of the inherent characteristics of exosomes, they are capable of serving as the basis of a new class of potentially transformative medicines.”
About Codiak BioSciences
Codiak is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on pioneering the development of exosome-based therapeutics, a new class of medicines with the potential to transform the treatment of a wide spectrum of diseases with high unmet medical need. By leveraging the biology of exosomes as natural intercellular transfer mechanisms, Codiak has developed its proprietary engEx Platform™ to expand upon the innate properties of exosomes to design, engineer and manufacture novel exosome therapeutic candidates. Codiak has utilized its engEx Platform to generate a deep pipeline of engineered exosomes aimed at treating a broad range of disease areas, spanning oncology, neuro-oncology, neurology, neuromuscular disease and infectious disease.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, among other things, statements concerning the development and therapeutic potential of the Company’s engEx Platform, engEx product candidates and engineered exosomes generally, including future development plans, regulatory filings, data releases and timing with respect thereto. Any forward-looking statements in this press release are based on management’s current expectations of future events and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially and adversely from those set forth in or implied by such forward-looking statements. For a discussion of these risks and uncertainties, and other important factors, any of which could cause our actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see the section entitled “Risk Factors” in Codiak’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2021, and in subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, as well as discussions of potential risks, uncertainties and other important factors in Codiak’s subsequent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. All information in this press release is current as of the date of this report, and Codiak undertakes no duty to update this information unless required by law.
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