Blueprint Medicines rejigged its R&D organization last fall, bringing its research and clinical development teams under one roof and putting Fouad Namouni, M.D., Bristol Myers Squibb’s former oncology head, in charge. Now, the company is adding another BMS veteran to the team: Percy Carter, Ph.D., who will spearhead research and preclinical development as the new chief scientific officer.
Carter arrives during a time of change for Blueprint. When the company combined the R&D units in September, CSO Marion Dorsch, Ph.D., and Chief Medical Officer Andy Boral, M.D., Ph.D., continued to lead research and clinical development, respectively, within the greater organization. In January, the company announced Dorsch would be departing in March and that Boral would move onto an executive vice president role, making way for Becker Hewes, M.D., then the senior vice president of clinical development, to succeed him as CMO.
“I am thrilled to welcome Percy to Blueprint Medicines. His proven track record of advancing promising science into the clinic and leading diverse, high-performing research teams will be invaluable as we seek to further advance and expand our precision therapy pipeline,” said Namouni, president of R&D at Blueprint, in a statement.
Carter joined Bristol Myers Squibb in 2001 when the Big Pharma acquired DuPont Pharmaceuticals. Over the next 18 years, he held several roles in drug discovery at BMS, eventually becoming senior vice president and head of discovery. He moved on to Johnson & Johnson, where he was global head of discovery sciences in the healthcare giant’s Janssen unit, before heading to FibroGen, where he was CSO, a position he held for less than a year.
Blueprint got its first drug approved in January 2020. A kinase inhibitor, Ayvakit became the first targeted treatment for patients with a type of stomach cancer called gastrointestinal stromal tumor (GIST) who carry a (PDGFRα) exon 18 mutation. The company had been seeking a nod as a fourth-line treatment for a broader GIST population, but the FDA rejected the drug in that indication as it did not beat Bayer’s Stivarga at staving off tumor progression or death in a phase 3 study.
Despite the setback, Blueprint is seeking approval for the drug in a rare blood disorder called advanced systemic mastocytosis (SM), which is characterized by uncontrolled mast cell growth and can cause debilitating symptoms such as allergic reactions, fatigue and bone pain. The company filed a supplemental NDA for Ayvakit in that indication in December with a request for a speedy review.
Gavreto, its Roche-partnered RET inhibitor, trailed Eli Lilly’s Retevmo to market but started to catch up in December.
Retevmo became the first FDA-approved treatment for RET-altered tumors when the agency greenlighted it in May 2020. That approval covered non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and thyroid cancers with RET alterations, while Gavreto’s FDA nod in September was only for NSCLC. In December, the agency OK’d Blueprint’s drug for thyroid cancer as well.
Behind its two marketed drugs, Blueprint has a pipeline of targeted therapies aimed at EGFR, FGFR4 and CDK2. It is also working on another treatment for systemic mastocytosis and an immunotherapy for advanced cancer.