Mirati Therapeutics’ longtime leader Charles “Chuck” Baum has taken a new job as CEO of Terremoto Biosciences, a Bay Area biotech that’s developing drugs that can bind permanently to challenging targets for cancer and other diseases.
Baum left Mirati in January after Bristol Myers Squibb completed its $4.9 billion acquisition of the company and its cancer drug Krazati, which is approved in lung and colorectal cancer for certain patients with a cancer-driving mutation called KRAS G12C.
KRAS was long thought to be a difficult but important target across cancer types. But after a breakthrough 2013 study from University of California, San Francisco researchers led by Kevan Shokat, Amgen and Mirati developed the first two KRAS inhibitors, approved in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Now, a deluge of biotech companies are developing next iterations of KRAS-targeting drugs.
Terremoto is likewise chasing so-called “undruggable” targets. The company was launched in 2022 by OrbiMed and Third Rock Ventures around a specific protein building block, an amino acid called lysine. With $250 million across two funding rounds, Terremoto is creating drugs that covalently bind to lysine.
“When we started KRAS, nobody thought we were going to succeed. They used to say, ‘Oh, that’s nice, but we don’t care because it’s never going to work,'” Baum said. “I’d like to do it again.”
Baum said Terremoto is preparing to ask the FDA for permission to start its first clinical trial, but declined to say what programs the company is working on or when exactly that would be. He did say that Terremoto’s scope goes beyond just cancer.
Baum in mid-2023 announced he was retiring from Mirati after a decade at the company, but later did not and returned as CEO in order to lead the biotech in its final days before the Bristol Myers deal.
“I realized that I needed something to do,” Baum said. “I actually like that part of it — to be really involved and also to see the day-to-day progress of the science.
“It’s really a great experience to see the first clinical results of a program.”
Baum noted that when he joined what would become Mirati in 2012, it was a company in need of a turnaround. He moved what was then known as MethylGene from Montreal to San Diego and revamped the company to develop targeted cancer drugs. Over the years, Mirati grew from a handful of employees to a public company with about 600 staff at the time of its sale agreement with Bristol Myers.
At Terremoto, which is private and has about 45 employees, Baum said he looks forward to the small company environment. One of his key tasks is building out Terremoto’s clinical development team, where he noted he could potentially hire former Mirati staffers. Many were laid off following the Bristol Myers acquisition.