Cend Therapeutics Names Viracta’s David Slack As Its New President & CEO

Cancer drug developer Cend Therapeutics has appointed one of its board members, David Slack, to succeed Erkki Ruoslahti as its president and CEO. Slack, who joined the Cend board last year, was most recently chief business officer at Viracta Therapeutics. His previous experience includes serving as co-founding CEO at Kinagen and vice president for business development at Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: [[ticker:IONS]]).

Ruoslahti, a Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute professor and co-founding CEO of Cend, will retain his role as executive chairman and serve as a senior advisor to the company. The La Jolla, CA-based company, formerly known as DrugCendR, is working to develop cancer therapies that are better able to penetrate solid tumors.

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.