Mirati Names Synthorx’s Joseph Leveque as New Chief Medical Officer

Mirati Therapeutics (NASDAQ: [[ticker:MRTX]]) this week appointed Joseph Leveque as its new chief medical officer. Leveque most recently served as CMO at San Diego’s Synthorx, which was recently acquired by Sanofi. Prior he served in the same role at ARMO Biosciences, which was acquired by Eli Lilly (NYSE: [[ticker:LLY]]) in 2018. Previous experience includes positions at Merck KGaA subsidiary EMD Serono, Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: [[ticker:BMS]]), Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Cephalon Oncology, and Amgen (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMGN]]).

Leveque succeeds Isan Chen, who is stepping down from his role as chief medical and development officer at the San Diego-based cancer drug developer to lead an early-stage biotech company, according to Mirati. Chen, who was with Mirati for seven years, will continue to act as an advisor to the firm. Mirati’s lead drug candidate sitravatinib is under evaluation in combination with a checkpoint inhibitor in a Phase 3 trial for patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Author: Sarah de Crescenzo

Sarah is Xconomy's San Diego-based editor. Prior to joining the team in 2018, she wrote about startups, tech and finance at the San Diego Business Journal. Her decade of full-time news experience includes coverage of subjects including campaign finance, crime and courts as a reporter and editor at outlets throughout California, including the Orange County Register. She earned a bachelor's degree in English Literature at UC San Diego, where she wrote for the student newspaper and played collegiate lacrosse. In 2019, she earned an MBA at UC Irvine.