NuCana Appoints Jeffrey D. Bloss, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer
NuCana plc, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on significantly improving treatment outcomes for patients with cancer, announced the appointment of Jeffrey D. Bloss, M.D. as Chief Medical Officer. Dr. Bloss will be based in NuCana’s US offices located outside Boston, MA.
“We are delighted to welcome Jeff to the executive team at NuCana,” said Hugh S. Griffith, NuCana’s Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “Jeff brings over two decades of experience leading clinical development and medical affairs at several biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. His achievements include leading the development, approval and commercialization of numerous blockbuster oncology drugs, which will be invaluable to NuCana as we continue to advance our ProTide pipeline through the clinic and, if approved, towards commercialization.”
Dr. Bloss said, “I am excited to join NuCana and look forward to furthering its mission of improving treatment outcomes for patients with cancer by developing more effective and safer medicines. The Company’s phosphoramidate chemistry approach has the potential to positively impact the lives of millions of patients with cancer. With an ongoing Phase III clinical study of Acelarin plus cisplatin in patients with biliary tract cancer, the upcoming initiation of a Phase III clinical study of NUC-3373 in combination with other agents in patients with colorectal cancer and an ongoing Phase I clinical study of NUC-7738 in patients with solid tumors, I could not be joining NuCana at a more exciting time.”
Jeffrey Bloss, M.D. brings over 25 years of leadership experience in oncology at multiple biopharmaceutical companies including Astellas, GlaxoSmithKline, Xencor, Onyx, Genentech and Eli Lilly. During his career Dr. Bloss has been a key member of the teams responsible for the development, approval and commercialization of more than ten successful oncology drugs, including Gemzar®, Tarceva®, Sorafenib®, Tykerb® and Xtandi®. Immediately prior to joining NuCana, Dr. Bloss served as Chief Medical Officer of Tarveda Therapeutics, a venture-backed clinical-stage oncology company. Prior to Tarveda, Dr. Bloss was Chief Medical Officer and Senior Vice President, Medical Affairs at Aegerion. Before his work within industry, Dr. Bloss held a series of roles of increasing responsibility at the University of Missouri, Ellis Fischel Cancer Center and in the United States Air Force Medical Corps. Dr. Bloss completed his Residency in Obstetrics & Gynecology at Wilford Hall USAF Medical Center and his Fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at the University of California, Irvine. He received his M.D. from Thomas Jefferson University Medical College and B.S. from Juniata College.
About NuCana
NuCana is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on significantly improving treatment outcomes for patients with cancer by applying our ProTide technology to transform some of the most widely prescribed chemotherapy agents, nucleoside analogs, into more effective and safer medicines. While these conventional agents remain part of the standard of care for the treatment of many solid and hematological tumors, their efficacy is limited by cancer cell resistance mechanisms and they are often poorly tolerated. Utilizing our proprietary technology, we are developing new medicines, ProTides, designed to overcome key cancer resistance mechanisms and generate much higher concentrations of anti-cancer metabolites in cancer cells. NuCana’s robust pipeline includes three ProTides in clinical development. Acelarin and NUC-3373, are new chemical entities derived from the nucleoside analogs gemcitabine and 5-fluorouracil, respectively, two widely used chemotherapy agents. Acelarin is in a Phase III study for patients with advanced biliary tract cancer. NUC-3373 is in a Phase I study for the potential treatment of a wide range of patients with advanced solid tumors and a Phase Ib study for patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. Our third ProTide, NUC-7738, is a transformation of a novel nucleoside analog (3’-deoxyadenosine) and is in a Phase I study for patients with advanced solid tumors.
