MEI Pharma, Inc. appointed new CEO

Item 5.02 
Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers. 


Resignation of Officers 

In accordance with the Merger Agreement, prior to the consummation of the Merger, Daniel Gold, Ph.D. will resign as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Gold will continue to serve on the Board of Directors of the combined company. Dr. Gold's resignation is not the result of any disagreements with the Company or relating to the Company's operations, policies or practices. 

Resignation of Directors 

In accordance with the Merger Agreement, immediately prior to the consummation of the Merger, Tamar D. Howson, Nicholas R. Glover and Frederick W. Driscoll will resign from the Board of Directors of the Company. Mr. Driscoll had been chair of the Audit Committee. Ms. Howson had been a member of the Nominating & Governance Committee and a member of the Compensation Committee. Mr. Glover had been chair of the Compensation Committee and a member of the Audit Committee. The resignations were not the result of any disagreements with the Company relating to the Company's operations, policies or practices. 

Appointment of Officers 

Pursuant to the Merger Agreement, effective prior to the consummation of the Merger, David M. Urso will become Chief Executive Officer. 

David M. Urso has been Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel of the Company since July 2018. Prior to July 2018, Mr. Urso had been the Company's Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and General Counsel since April 2014. Mr. Urso joined MEI Pharma with more than two decades of experience in the life science industry, most recently as Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel at Tioga Pharmaceuticals, a privately held drug development company he co-founded in 2005. Previously, he was a Principal at Forward Ventures, where he was responsible for identifying and developing life science venture capital investments. Prior to joining Forward Ventures in 2002, Mr. Urso was Director of Corporate Development and Legal Affairs at DNA Sciences, Inc. Previously, he worked as an attorney in the corporate securities and licensing groups at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati LLP and Cooley Godward LLP, after beginning his career as a bench scientist at SmithKline Beecham and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Mr. Urso received a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A. in Molecular Biology and Philosophy from Reed College. 

In addition, pursuant to the Merger Agreement, upon consummation of the business combination, Robert Ilaria Jr. will become Chief Medical Officer, and Stéphane Peluso will become Chief Scientific Officer of the combined company. 

Robert Ilaria, Jr., M.D., has served as Chief Medical Officer of Infinity since September 2021. Dr. Ilaria joined Infinity from Bristol Myers Squibb and Celgene, where he worked from 2017 to 2021 and focused on immune-oncology drug development, serving leadership roles on the CTLA-4 and PD-1 inhibitor drug development teams, respectively. Prior to joining Celgene, Dr. Ilaria was at Eli Lilly from 2005 to 2017 in leadership roles of increasing responsibility in both Early and Late Phase drug development. During his time at Eli Lilly, Dr. Ilaria was responsible for the clinical strategy of multiple assets ranging from pre-clinical development through regulatory approval. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. Ilaria had academic clinical and basic science research careers at UT Southwestern and Harvard Medical School. He holds a BA in biology and philosophy from Rice University and an MD from UT Southwestern Medical School. He did his internal medicine and hematology and medical oncology training at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Ilaria has remained clinically active during his pharmaceutical career through volunteer oncology staff service at academic teaching institutions. 


Stéphane Peluso, Ph.D., has served as Chief Scientific Officer of Infinity since August 2021. Dr. Peluso returned to Infinity from Ipsen Bioscience where he was most recently Vice President, Global Head of Oncology External Innovation. Prior to Ipsen, Dr. Peluso worked at Infinity where he held positions of increasing responsibility in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery from 2006 to August 2016, ultimately leading the Company's early drug discovery and pipeline expansion efforts through both internal R&D and business development. Dr. Peluso started his career as a medicinal chemist at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. He graduated from the Ecole Supérieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon (ESCIL), France, obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and completed postdoctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Appointment of Directors 

In accordance with the Merger Agreement, effective immediately after the consummation of the Merger, the following individuals will be appointed to the Board of Directors of the combined company. 

Norman C. Selby has served as a board member of Infinity since March 2012. Mr. Selby has spent over 35 years in the healthcare industry in various consulting, managerial, investor, and board roles. Currently his primary focus is on Real Endpoints, LLC, a private healthcare information and analytics company he helped to found and where has been a board member since October 2010, and as advisor to two privately held digital health start-ups, Jasper Health, Inc. and Rhino HealthTech. He previously co-founded Paige.AI, an artificial intelligence company focused on computational pathology, where he was a board member from May 2017 to January 2020. Among earlier healthcare roles, Mr. Selby served as the Chief Executive Officer of TransForm Pharmaceuticals from 2001 until 2005 and served as Executive Chairman of Physicians Interactive Holdings from 2008 to 2013. Prior to TransForm Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Selby was an Executive Vice President at Citigroup/Citicorp from 1997 to 2000. Mr. Selby spent the bulk of his career, from 1978 to 1997, at McKinsey & Company where he was Director (Senior Partner) in the firm's New York office. He held several leadership roles at McKinsey, including head of the firm's Global Pharmaceuticals and Medical Products Practice. From 1987 to 1989, Mr. Selby took a leave of absence from McKinsey to serve as Chief Operating Officer of the New York Blood Center, the largest community blood organization in the country, where he led its financial and operational turnaround. Mr. Selby previously served as a member of the board of directors of Escalier Biosciences and Oppilan Pharma, Ltd., each private biotechnology companies, each until January 2021, respectively. Mr. Selby also previously served as a director of Millenium Pharmaceuticals (MLNM) from 2000 to 2008, as well as several privately held healthcare companies. Mr. Selby serves on the Board of Trustees of the Central Park Conservancy and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the advisory board of HBS's Healthcare Initiative. Mr. Selby holds a B.A. in architecture from Yale College and an M.B.A. with Distinction from HBS. We believe Mr. Selby's qualifications to serve on our Board of Directors include his extensive experience as a senior business executive in the biopharmaceutical industry, and his expertise in corporate strategy, finance, and commercialization of biopharmaceutical products. 

Adelene Q. Perkins has served as a board member of Infinity since January 2010, including as Chair of Infinity's Board of Directors since November 2012, and as Infinity's Chief Executive Officer since January 2010. She has also served as Infinity's President from January 2010 to January 2017, as Infinity's President and Chief Business Officer from October 2008 through December 2009 and as Infinity's Executive Vice President and Chief Business Officer between September 2006 and October 2008. Ms. Perkins served as Executive Vice President of Infinity Discovery, Inc., from February 2006 until the merger with Infinity's predecessor company in September 2006 and Chief Business Officer of Infinity Discovery, Inc., from June 2002 until September 2006. Ms. Perkins served as Vice President of Business and Corporate Development of TransForm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a privately held specialty pharmaceutical company, from 2000 to 2002. From 1992 to 1999, Ms. Perkins held various positions at Genetics Institute, most recently serving as Vice President of Emerging Business and General Manager of the DiscoverEase® business unit, and from 1985 to 1992 advised clients in the healthcare industry while at Bain & Company, a strategy consulting firm. Ms. Perkins has served on the board of directors for the Biotechnology Industry Organization since 2012; the Bruker Corporation, a publicly traded manufacturer of analytic instruments, since 2017; Massachusetts General Hospital since 2017; the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, a not-for-profit organization, since 2014; and Project Hope, a not-for-profit social services company, since 2013. Ms. Perkins received a B.S. in chemical engineering from Villanova University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, or HBS. We believe Ms. Perkins' qualifications to serve on our Board of Directors include her extensive experience as a senior business executive in the biopharmaceutical industry, including as Infinity's President and Chief Executive Officer, and her expertise in corporate strategy and business operations. 


Richard Gaynor, M.D. has served as a board member of Infinity since March 16, 2020. Dr. Gaynor has served as the President, Chief of Research and Development, BioNTech US, formerly Neon Therapeutics, a public biotechnology company developing novel neoantigen-targeted T cell therapies, since November 2016. Prior to his tenure at Neon Therapeutics, Dr. Gaynor spent 15 years in a series of senior roles at Lilly Oncology, most recently as Senior Vice President Clinical Development and Medical Affairs, where he chaired the Lilly Oncology Research and Development Committee and helped oversee a variety of collaborations, including with Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, AstraZeneca and GE. Prior to that role, Dr. Gaynor also led preclinical and early clinical oncology research at Eli Lilly. Dr. Gaynor began his career in academia, spending nine years on the faculty at University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, followed by eleven years on the faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, including time serving as the chief of hematology-oncology and director of the Simmons Cancer Center. He holds an M.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and, following his residency in internal medicine there, he completed fellowship training in hematology-oncology at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine. He is the author of nearly 150 publications and participates on numerous advisory boards and committees, including the American Association of Cancer Research, the Stand Up To Cancer scientific advisory committee, and the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. Dr. Gaynor has served on the board of directors of Alkermes plc., a publicly traded pharmaceutical company specializing in neuroscience and oncology, since September 2019, and Zai Lab Ltd., a publicly traded biopharmaceutical company, since November 2021. We believe Dr. Gaynor's qualifications to serve on our Board of Directors include his extensive experience as a senior business executive in the biopharmaceutical industry and as a thought leader in academia.