Tectonic Therapeutic has appointed Peter McNamara, Ph.D., as head of research. McNamara joins Tectonic from the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), where he rose to the title of head of biotherapeutics and biotechnology over a 16-year spell at the group.
Boston-based Tectonic launched last month with $80 million in series A funds to go after unexplored and undruggable GPCRs. By then, Tectonic had already put together a C-suite featuring people who worked on drugs including Entresto, Keytruda and Praluent but lacked someone to head its research operations.
Tectonic has hired McNamara to fill that gap in its leadership team. McNamara has spent most of his career up to this point at GNF, the San Diego-based group that bridges basic science and preclinical drug discovery at Novartis.
GNF hired McNamara in 2005. After a series of promotions, McNamara reached the role of executive director of biotherapeutics and biotechnology in 2018. The position gave McNamara oversight of 130 scientists and engineers working across most of GNF’s platform technologies.
In his long spell at GNF, McNamara directly contributed to eight clinical candidates, including the FXR agonists LJN452 and LMB763, and was involved in three FDA-approved drugs, including Braftovi and Zykadia. Braftovi, now sold by Pfizer, originated at Novartis, but the Swiss pharma offloaded the BRAF inhibitor as part of its acquisition of GlaxoSmithKline’s oncology business.
At Tectonic, McNamara will apply his skills to the GEODe platform. The platform, which is based on the work of Andrew Kruse, Ph.D., and his lab at Harvard Medical School, is designed to overcome the barriers to the discovery of biologics that modulate GPCR signaling. Tectonic sees McNamara as the right person to help realize the potential of the platform.
“His proven ability to identify and develop drug candidates from early discovery to the clinic across a variety of therapeutic areas will be invaluable as we unlock the full potential of GPCR-targeted therapies using our GEODe platform,” Tectonic CEO Alise Reicin, M.D., said in a statement. “Peter’s experience is bolstered by his leadership skills in building productive multidisciplinary teams starting from strategy to design principles and implementation.”