Kura Oncology announced the appointment of Kirsten Flowers as Chief Commercial Officer. Flowers joins Kura most recently from Array Biopharma, where she served as head of commercial operations until the completion of its $11.4 billion acquisition by Pfizer in July 2019.
“Kirsten is a world-class leader in building successful commercial organizations and launching precision medicines for the treatment of cancer,” said Troy Wilson, Ph.D., J.D., President and Chief Executive Officer of Kura Oncology. “With our ongoing AIM-HN pivotal trial and our positive regulatory feedback on a second registration-directed study in AITL, we believe tipifarnib can become a meaningful franchise in both HRAS mutant solid tumors and CXCL12-pathway dependent cancers. We are delighted to welcome Kirsten, who is ideally suited to help lay the foundation and build the commercial capabilities required for sustainable, long-term growth of our company.”
Flowers brings extensive commercial experience leading top-performing oncology product launches at large pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations. Most recently, she served as Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations at Array Biopharma, where she built and led the commercial organization that delivered the successful launch of Braftovi® + Mektovi® for patients with BRAF-mutant melanoma in the U.S. Previously, she held various commercial leadership roles at Pfizer, including serving as the U.S. commercial lead for the launch of the blockbuster drug IBRANCE® in breast cancer and for the launch of INLYTA® in renal cell carcinoma. She began her career at Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals. Ms. Flowers earned her MBA from Harvard Business School and her BS in Molecular & Cellular Biology and Psychology from the University of Arizona.
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“Kura is an exciting company with significant potential to serve patients,” said Flowers. “I am impressed by the company’s patient-focused culture, the strength of its leadership, the clinical development program for tipifarnib in both HRAS mutant solid tumors and CXCL12-driven indications, and the emerging pipeline of drug candidates. I look forward to joining this talented team to build a commercial organization to help bring important new targeted therapies to patients with cancer.”
Kura Oncology’s lead drug candidate, tipifarnib, is a potent, selective and orally bioavailable inhibitor of farnesyl transferase in-licensed from Janssen in December 2014. Previously, tipifarnib was studied in more than 5,000 cancer patients and showed compelling and durable anti-cancer activity in certain patient subsets; however, no molecular mechanism of action had been determined that could explain its clinical activity across a range of solid tumor and hematologic indications. Leveraging advances in next generation sequencing as well as emerging information about cancer genetics and tumor biology, the Company is seeking to identify those patients most likely to benefit from tipifarnib. Tipifarnib has been granted Fast Track designation by the FDA for the treatment of patients with HRAS mutant HNSCC. Kura has received multiple issued patents for tipifarnib, providing patent exclusivity in the U.S. and foreign countries.